6.8 Censorship and Propaganda
113
their effect. We are also heading towards robot journalism.
28 In the meantime, some
AI tools are so convincing story tellers that they have been judged to be too dangerous
to release.
29
It is no wonder, the world has recently entered a post-factual era
30 and is plagued by
fake news. There are even “deep fakes”,
31 as it is now possible to manufacture videos
of people, in which you can let them say anything you like. The outcome is almost
indistinguishable from a real video.
32 One can also modify video recordings in realtime and change somebody’s mimics.
33 In other words, digital tools provide perfect
means for manipulation and deception, which can undermine modern societies that
are based on informed dialogue and facts. Therefore, large-scale “PsyOps” (Psychological Operations) are not just theoretical possibilities.
34 Governments apply them
not only to foreign people, but even to their own—something that has apparently been
legalized recently
35 and made possible by handing over control of the Internet.
36
6.9 Targeting and Behavioral Manipulation
It is frequently said that we consciously perceive only about 10% of the information
processed by our brain. The remaining information may influence us as well, but
in a subconscious way. Hence, one can use so-called subliminal cues
37 to influence
our behavior, while we would not even notice that we have been manipulated. This
is also one of the underlying success principles of “nudging”.
38 Putting an apple in
28 The Rise of the Robot Reporter, The New York Times (February 5, 2019) https://www.nyt
imes.com/2019/02/05/business/media/artificial-intelligence-journalism-robots.html, https://emerj.
com/ai-sector-overviews/automated-journalism-applications/.
29 New AI fake text generator may be too dangerous to release, say creators, The Guardian (February
14, 2019) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/14/elon-musk-backed-ai-writes-con
vincing-news-fiction.
30 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-truth_politics.
31 https://news.artnet.com/art-world/mark-zuckerberg-deepfake-artist-1571788;
https://vimeo.
com/341794473.
32 Adobe’s Project VoCo Lets You Edit Speech As Easily As Text, TechCrunch (November
3, 2016) https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/03/adobes-project-voco-lets-you-edit-speech-as-easilyas-text/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3l4XLZ59iw.
33 Face2Face: Real-Time Face Capture and Reenactment of Videos, Cinema5D (April 9, 2016)
https://www.cinema5d.com/face2face-real-time-face-capture-and-reenactment-of-videos/.
34 How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet …, The Intercept (February 25, 2014) https://theint
ercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/, Sentient world: war games on the grandest scale, The
Register (June 23, 2007) https://www.theregister.com/2007/06/23/sentient_worlds/.
35 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith–Mundt_Act; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countering_F
oreign_Propaganda_and_Disinformation_Act.
36 An Internet Giveaway to the U.N., Wall Street Journal (August 28, 2016) https://www.wsj.com/
articles/an-internet-giveaway-to-the-u-n-1472421165.
37 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subliminal_stimuli.
38 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory; Thaler and Sunstein [8].
113
their effect. We are also heading towards robot journalism.
28 In the meantime, some
AI tools are so convincing story tellers that they have been judged to be too dangerous
to release.
29
It is no wonder, the world has recently entered a post-factual era
30 and is plagued by
fake news. There are even “deep fakes”,
31 as it is now possible to manufacture videos
of people, in which you can let them say anything you like. The outcome is almost
indistinguishable from a real video.
32 One can also modify video recordings in realtime and change somebody’s mimics.
33 In other words, digital tools provide perfect
means for manipulation and deception, which can undermine modern societies that
are based on informed dialogue and facts. Therefore, large-scale “PsyOps” (Psychological Operations) are not just theoretical possibilities.
34 Governments apply them
not only to foreign people, but even to their own—something that has apparently been
legalized recently
35 and made possible by handing over control of the Internet.
36
6.9 Targeting and Behavioral Manipulation
It is frequently said that we consciously perceive only about 10% of the information
processed by our brain. The remaining information may influence us as well, but
in a subconscious way. Hence, one can use so-called subliminal cues
37 to influence
our behavior, while we would not even notice that we have been manipulated. This
is also one of the underlying success principles of “nudging”.
38 Putting an apple in
28 The Rise of the Robot Reporter, The New York Times (February 5, 2019) https://www.nyt
imes.com/2019/02/05/business/media/artificial-intelligence-journalism-robots.html, https://emerj.
com/ai-sector-overviews/automated-journalism-applications/.
29 New AI fake text generator may be too dangerous to release, say creators, The Guardian (February
14, 2019) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/14/elon-musk-backed-ai-writes-con
vincing-news-fiction.
30 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-truth_politics.
31 https://news.artnet.com/art-world/mark-zuckerberg-deepfake-artist-1571788;
https://vimeo.
com/341794473.
32 Adobe’s Project VoCo Lets You Edit Speech As Easily As Text, TechCrunch (November
3, 2016) https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/03/adobes-project-voco-lets-you-edit-speech-as-easilyas-text/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3l4XLZ59iw.
33 Face2Face: Real-Time Face Capture and Reenactment of Videos, Cinema5D (April 9, 2016)
https://www.cinema5d.com/face2face-real-time-face-capture-and-reenactment-of-videos/.
34 How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet …, The Intercept (February 25, 2014) https://theint
ercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/, Sentient world: war games on the grandest scale, The
Register (June 23, 2007) https://www.theregister.com/2007/06/23/sentient_worlds/.
35 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith–Mundt_Act; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countering_F
oreign_Propaganda_and_Disinformation_Act.
36 An Internet Giveaway to the U.N., Wall Street Journal (August 28, 2016) https://www.wsj.com/
articles/an-internet-giveaway-to-the-u-n-1472421165.
37 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subliminal_stimuli.
38 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory; Thaler and Sunstein [8].