It used to be said that, “a picture is worth a thousands words.” It also used to be said, “pictures do not lie.” Perhaps that should be revised to, “a picture is worth a thousand lies.”
It has been quite a while now that I have been generally skeptical of all things photographic in the the media. It started with PhotoShop, which makes it easy-peasy to manipulate images. Now AI has come along, amping that up several magnitudes. What is even worse for humanity, is that it now includes videos.
I listened to a podcast a few years back that predicted that with AI and other technologies it would become impossible to tell if a politician – or any other person – appearing in a video was really the person. At the time, the podcaster stated that voice manipulation was already there, and they expected video to catch up within a few years. I remember thinking, “not in my lifetime.” Boy howdy, was I so wrong. It is just around the corner.
This video is more about photography as an art form, but it applies generally. It is short, only a little less than 3 minutes.
Can we really trust our eyes unless we are actually there? Even then “they” will try to spin it to the point that you question what you saw. And forget ye not, “2 + 2 = 5.”
When I was younger, much younger, I used to think reality was a fixed property. Now days, I have no idea. There seems to be so many competing versions of reality that is seems, well, unreal, at times.
Which brings up an Ambrose Bierce quote from the book, The Devil’s Dictionary that I completely relate to:
CYNIC, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic’s eyes to improve his vision.
Jon Winokur could have well been riffing on this definition is his book: The Portable Curmudgeon
Now the video that inspired this rambling:
Channeling my inner Mike Rush, I was fully expecting a ‘reveal’ at the end that the entire commentary was a AI-produced video.
I don’t use AI for that kind of thing, but ChatGPT has helped solve 3 different technical problems in the past 2 weeks. An HVAC thing, a Windows 11 thing, and a Kindle thing. It found things I never would have figured out otherwise.
And I used AI solution for a computer problem I was having, and ending up taking my computer to a repair shop… $100 later.