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Comment by two2two | Hacker News Reader

05:56> as computers graphics get better, we believe all images less

This nugget in the video struck me most. I remember when I began trusting images less once I understood the capabilities modern photo software provided. We've now achieved this with most physical forms in motion picture, short of humans. Which is not to say we won't soon. Once that threshold is crossed, then what's next? Eventually virtual reality, augmented reality, and finally reality reality. We'll trust everything we see (and eventually hear/taste/smell/feel) far less than we do now.

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Indeed! I remember this being discussed as early as 1993, in the film "Rising Sun" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107969/

Another good example is https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bp-and-the-gulf-oil-spill-misad... ...which I remember being a wake-up call to those who didn't know it had already been going on for a couple decades.

I truly wonder how much of what is presented in the MSM these days is actually not real and manages to slip by...

> I truly wonder how much of what is presented in the MSM these days is actually not real and manages to slip by...

Quite a lot presumably. Ever since the idea of a media started, there have been people trying to hoax it for whatever reason or not:

http://hoaxes.org/weblog/categories/category/Journalism

If a story is mainstream enough (or remotely political), hoaxes will probably get identified at some point or another. If it's in a specialist subject area? Forget it. Who knows how much questionable stuff slips through when neither the journalist nor their audience know what's plausible and what isn't?

Of course, no one now can know for sure what the consequences will be.... but I'm intrigued by the possibility that this might be a good thing. Could this help make people more savvy about evidence, and less focused on the concrete and superficial? Like I said, I -- we -- don't know.

Perhaps the effect of spam and phishing on the general population provides some insight into this. Have they increased the degree of healthy scepticism and delayed judgement in the population overall? I don't think there's any knee-jerk obvious answer to that, but perhaps there has been some research into that.

People are situationally sceptical. We tend to be sceptical of things we already don't believe, but not of things we do. We can expect people now and in the future to question an images authenticity if it questions something they want to believe.

And more dangerously, if they already agree with the majority of the image's content, and there is an introduction of fictional content: that false information gets baked into the observer's mind as belonging to their "trusted information". And that is a major perception problem with humans.

It still requires large enough means that you should know from the context whether a video is likely to have been manipulated or not (based on whether it would be worth it). Unlike a photo where pretty much anyone who can use a computer can photoshop it.

50 years ago faking a picture was hard. It won't be long for video to be as easy as still is today.

No, we won't trust things less. It's wired into us to believe what we see. Rather we'll get fooled more often.

Kant and the rest of non-realist philosophers are going to have a field day.

This is how I know the moon landings were fake.

/jk

eh, i think technology can erase some of the need for human trust. Checksums, public/private keys, blockchain, etc. should all be able to handle verification of authenticity.

As a result, i'm sure we will soon have CAs for more than just https.

That mentality right there is dangerous. Yes, it is possible, but in practical execution it will be insecure. I see an active mentality to delegate responsibilities to software that should not be. Case in point: using facial recognition for authentication of services with access to one's finances. If anything, we need to realize the reliance on human trust increases with technology.

I had at one time thought something similar, but in review, I think the weakest point is that such things become background noise to the initial reaction and join "References" as the newest proof of validity that never get properly vetted, as we often see with think-pieces that want to take on an air of authority. It's very simple to convince people right now with a reference to an article every other word, regardless of how reliable or even relevant each of the references actually is. The effect though is that the piece attains a state of legitimacy because "boy look at all those references", and disproving such a piece is far more difficult than writing one, with the research to break it down taking far longer, and with attention spans being more interested in whatever the piece is trying to push.

I fear that when we try to use thinks like Checksums, Pub/Private Keys, Blockchain, they're not going to be applied in a reasonable measure, nor will they be explained to audiences in an honest way, but instead simply be tacked on as a badge of legitimacy for the content, not as simply a validation of the source/transaction history.

>we often see with think-pieces that want to take on an air of authority. It's very simple to convince people right now with a reference to an article every other word, regardless of how reliable or even relevant each of the references actually is. The effect though is that the piece attains a state of legitimacy

[case in point this Youtube Video that's been making the rounds.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFNbCcyFkk)

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