“Seeing is believing” is going the way of the dinosaur. The
growth of technology to create or tamper with images has been nothing short of
astounding. The accelerating pace of technology along with decreased costs have
put image-faking capabilities in the hands of the general public.
An article in the May 26th Economist “Cinema, not
verite” (see: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/05/26/a-faked-video-of-donald-trump-points-to-a-worrying-future,
which is also a photo source) uses a fake video of Donald Trump to illustrate
the point.
Today’s world thrives on communication – social media in
particular. Propaganda is often crafted to appeal to people’s innate biases.
Propaganda is constructed to appeal to what people want to hear because it
confirms what they already believe.
By diligently using Artificial Intelligence and other
automated tools not only can high quality fake images be created, but those
images can be very broadly distributed in hopes of igniting even more viral
distribution.
The Economist article concludes with “Technology could make
the global village feel more like a fearful, distrusting swamp.
A complementary article was published by the Brookings
Institute - The West is ill-prepared for
AI-powered disinformation (see: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/05/25/the-west-is-ill-prepared-for-the-wave-of-deep-fakes-that-artificial-intelligence-could-unleash/?utm_campaign=Brookings%20Brief&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=63300653, which is another photo source).
This is a far more in depth article that
addresses many aspects of the disinformation challenge to include AI, the legal
environment and more. It also touches on “A growing cottage
industry of search engine optimization (SEO) manipulation provides services to
clients looking to rise in the Google rankings.” Which, while relates to the
business of Google searches, is an intelligence indicator that the tools to
manipulate how people look for and find information are also readily available.
The PSYOP Community needs to insure
that our counter-propaganda toolbox is as rich.
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