Greetings,
As of 1 January 1, 2023 I became the President of the PSYOP Veterans Association (POVA).
POVA is the oldest continuous serving veterans' Association providing membership support, reconnection, reunion and philanthropic support to America's military PSYOP soldiers and veterans. Founded in 1988, POVA continually seeks to support and assist our fellow PSYOP veterans.
I joined POVA many years ago and served as First Vice President. Chad Spawr, like many of my fellow VietNam Veterans has been experiencing health issues. I felt duty bound as the First Vice President to assume the duties.
While I will not be posting to the Blog often, I am continuing to follow and analyze important news and events in the field. I am providing all POVA members with a new product: PSYOP News. This is included in our monthly membership mailing.
Please consider joining POVA at www.usapova.org.
Here’s my first issue of PSYOP News from last month:
PSYOP News January 2023
Here are some links and summaries of important developments in the influence world.
1/10/23
How Finland Is Teaching a Generation to Spot Misinformation
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/10/world/europe/finland-misinformation-classes.html
See also: How it Startedd, How It is Going: Media Literacy Index 2022
https://osis.bg/?p=4243&lang=en
6 Jan 23
Deepfakes and International Conflict
Deceit and media manipulation have always been a part of wartime communications, but never before has it been possible for nearly any actor in a conflict to generate realistic audio, video, and text of their opponent’s political officials and military leaders. As artificial intelligence (AI) grows more sophisticated and the cost of computing continues to drop, the challenge deepfakes pose to online information environments during armed conflict will only grow.
https://www.brookings.edu/research/deepfakes-and-international-conflict/
28 Dec 22
MCIOC Marine Receives 2022 Major General Robert A. McClure Medallion Award
QUANTICO, VA, UNITED STATES
12.28.2022
Story by Capt. Karen Jensen
Marine Corps Information Operations Center
QUANTICO, Virginia. – The U.S. Army’s Psychological Operations Proponent’s Office announced the recipients of the Major General Robert A. McClure Medallion Awards, December 19, 2022, for the recipients’ sustained meritorious contributions in support of U.S. Army Special Forces, Civil Affairs, and Psychological Operations Regiments.
Gunnery Sgt. Jeffery D. Jones, an Influence/Psychological Operations Marine from the Marine Corps Information Operations Center, is one of four U.S. Marine Corps service members selected as Bronze award recipients. The three other U.S. Marine Corps recipients, all previous MCIOC Marines, are Staff Sgt. Taylor J. Dieckman, Gunnery Sgt. William Correa, and Maj. Christopher B. Hampton.
https://www.dvidshub.net/news/435981/mcioc-marine-receives-2022-major-general-robert-mcclure-medallion-award
22 Dec 22
Cyber to be featured for first time at US military exercise in Africa
WASHINGTON — An upcoming military exercise involving U.S. Africa Command and more than a dozen countries will for the first time feature elements of cyber.
The Justified Accord 23 event, or JA 23, kicks off in mid-February and will allow the U.S. military to work with African forces on matters tied to the digital domain, a highly influential and contested space, the Army announced Dec. 21.
Specifically, time will be spent sharpening incident detection, intelligence collection, containment and eradication abilities. Participants include Kenya and Uganda.
http://bit.ly/3Wp3SM0
The Power of ChatGPT
Unleashed on Military Technology
The dire warnings suggest an outcome similar to science fiction movies such as The Terminator or The Matrix, where armed machines turn on their masters. However, as Musk noted, the greater danger is that AI could take everyone’s jobs, as it could simply do everything better than humans. That danger could be released with recently released software known as Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, or ChatGPT. It actually sounds like a rather harmless application. But is it?
“It is a chatbot application developed by OpenAI that is built on top of the group’s GPT-3.5 family of large language models,” explained technology analyst Charles King of Pund-IT. “ChatGPT is fine-tuned with both supervised and reinforcement learning techniques, allowing it to develop detailed responses and articulate answers across numerous knowledge domains.”
The prototype launched just last month, and the application’s human-like responses raised alarms over whether ChatGPT might be used to build or orchestrate automated phishing scams sophisticated enough to fool consumers and businesses.
“Those same concerns could apply to government agencies, including groups dealing with defense and national security issues,” King told ClearanceJobs. “From my reading, I don’t believe that ChatGPT is a serious threat yet.”
20 Dec 22
‘South Park’ Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone Land $20 Million in Funding for Their Deepfake VFX Studio
The creators of “South Park” have secured a $20 million investment for their AI entertainment startup Deep Voodoo. The funding was led by Connect Ventures, an investment partnership between CAA and venture-capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA). It’s the first outside capital raised by Deep Voodoo, which previously was funded entirely by Parker and Stone’s independent entertainment company, Park County.
Stone and Parker plan to use the new funding to “accelerate Deep Voodoo’s development of its leading deepfake technology, cost-effective visual effects services and original synthetic media projects,” according to the announcement.
http://bit.ly/3hG0z49
16 Dec 22
Drones critical to US info-warfare playbook, Air Force Kennedy says
The three-star general spearheading the U.S. Air Force’s information warfare efforts foresees a sustained future for drones in the military, as nations monitor, analyze and attempt to outfox each other from greater and greater distances.
** POVA CONTACT INFORMATION **
PRESIDENT & NEWSLETTER EDITOR - LARRY DIETZ - dietz.pova@gmail.com
FIRST VICE PRESIDENT - JESSIE MANNING - abnswat@gmail.com
VICE PRESIDENT/CHAPLAIN - JOHN CHENEY - hqcmdt@hotmail.com
VICE PRESIDENT FINANCE - MIKE ROGERS - mike.rogers51@gmail.com
VICE PRESIDENT MARKETING - ILYA NEMTSOV - ilya.nemtsov@gmail.com
VICE PRESIDENT AT LARGE - HAMMOND SALLEY - hsalley@sbcglobal.net
GATEWAY CHAPTER PRESIDENT - BRETT COX - brett.cox@gmail.com
BOARD MEMBER - DESMOND GUDETS - desmond.j.gudets.mil@army.mil
SCHOLARSHIP CHAIRMAN - DANIEL WOOD - dwood1180@gmail.com
PRESIDENT EMERITUS & BOARD MEMBER - CHAD SPAWR - spawrtan@gmail.com
PRESIDENT EMERITUS & BOARD MEMBER - MIKE STOECKERT- hookeye1@yahoo.com
POVA HISTORIAN - HERB FRIEDMAN - sgmbert@hotmail.com
PRESIDENT EMERITUS - Dennis Bartow - dwbarton@hotmail.com
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Errors, etc
Please contact Larry Dietz - dietz.pova@gmail.comwith information on any errors.
