New Magic
When seeing is no longer believing
Some years ago my older sister was a chain-mail addict. She would gladly pass them on to her friends and impressionable younger sister all in good faith, to alert us to on-line and real-life scams. After receiving countless of these alerts, I eventually tuned out because it only happened to other people. First off, I had no way of knowing if the originator was pulling a scam or whether passing it to my 2+ friends if I don’t want bad luck to befall me could have meant passing on an embedded bug.
Those days are gone, at least I haven’t seen a chain mail in years, and in its place, is social engineering and the latest is manipulated technology that is so good one wouldn’t know to question what they’re seeing or hearing. Using recent technology an individual can make it appear someone is saying things out of character in a video. The image of the speaker looks exactly like the individual being portrayed in dress, inflection and mannerism. The voice, intonation and gestures are indecipherable from the behavioral characteristics attributed to the real person and might not be a cause for suspicion until refutation. Sometimes the portrayal is within a humorous context but if there is no way to tell a video has been technologically manipulated, imagine the implications for the individual especially if it’s being used in a serious malicious way. Imagine losing the ability to determine what’s real from what’s not. Backgrounds in pictures and videos can be manipulated to show a different location, other people and objects can be inserted in the image, well, you get the picture. So much for relying on videos to prove or disprove accusations, or is there a way to identify these instances?
This technology has been used in positive ways within museums for a historical context in conveying information where an individual’s voice and other likeness adds credibility to a specific event.
There are probably other positive uses for video manipulation with voice synthesis but the gist of my article is to voice the script-flipping thought we should own our individual digital self to protect against losing ourselves.
Today, in exchange for certain services, and some would argue less expensive products and services, we give up the rights to our personal data in relation to the consumed service. The collected data can be sold and used for any number of reasons without our permission. It could be used to offer other products and services of interest and save personal preferences to make future interactions easier. It may even be a bit creepy and feel like an invasion of privacy for another entity to know so much about us that they can anticipate our next move, needs and desires. We all have our privacy threshold but is it in vain?
No one wants to be fooled by social engineering, technological manipulation and/or fake news. That’s why there’s gaming, fiction and other augmented reality we can freely choose but we rely on certain aspects of our lives to always reflect the truth. We are entering into new technological territory where it is difficult to tell the truth from a lie, real from fake, fiction from non-fiction if not explicitly stated.
Recently I read where advanced technology is able to read lips at a distance. This is fantastic, if used ethically. Imagine the possibilities. Will there be a ‘speako’ as opposed to a ‘typo’, because I’m sure there will be errors in translation.
When there’s so much information to comb through, I’d rather not waste time to later realize the information is a spoof, hear or see things to affect my perception of an individual, place or thing. There are some things you can’t un-see, some things you can’t un-hear and finding out later the information consumed was fake I can’t say for sure what my mind has done with the information. It’s definitely stored somewhere in my organic database.
Anyway, as Elon Musk said recently, at least I hope he really said these very smart words,
“We can’t have like willy-nilly proliferation of fake news, that’s crazy.”
We need a way to ensure what we’re seeing and hearing is real and not social engineered or technologically manipulated. Personally, I’d want to own my digital data. Capture and store it so I can be in control how it is used. Be in control of what I share with whom, and reduce the chance of misuse and theft (It could work:). After all, I am unique, so why shouldn’t I, organic and digital selves, be owned exclusively by me? And if I want entertainment, I’ll read a book or watch a movie. Pray I’m not now the big sister, just a thought on a developing new magic capable of a willy-nilly change to our perception of reality.
