The 'Infocalypse' Is upon Us, and It's Only Getting Worse, Says Researcher Who Predicted Fake News Epidemic

While the expression 'Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse' has long been used on the cyberspace to refer to criminals similar drug dealers, coin launderers, pedophiles and terrorists, the term 'Infocalypse' was brought to the mainstream relatively recently by MIT grad Aviv Ovadya, who's currently working equally the Primary Technologist at the Centre for Social Media Responsibility (UMSI). In 2016, at the height of the faux news crisis, Ovadya had expressed concerns to technologists in Silicon Valley about the spread of misinformation and propaganda bearded every bit real news in a presentation titled 'Infocalypse'.

Co-ordinate to his presentation, internet platforms like Google, Facebook and Twitter earn their revenues is all geared towards rewarding clicks, shares and viewership rather than prioritizing the quality of information. That, he argued, was going to be real trouble sooner rather than subsequently, given how like shooting fish in a barrel it has become to post whatever anyone feels like without whatsoever filter. With major internet companies largely ignoring his concerns, Ovadya described the state of affairs as "car careening out of control" which everyone just ignored.

While his predictions have now proven to be frighteningly accurate, there's more bad news for those concerned about the blurring of lines betwixt the truth and the politically motivated propaganda. According to him, AI will exist widely used over the next couple of decades for misinformation campaigns and propaganda. In society to cease that dystopian future, Ovadya is working in tandem with a grouping of researchers and academics to see what tin can be done to prevent an data apocalypse.

One such aspect is deepfakes or AI-generated videos of celebrities morphed on other videos, largely porn. Reddit recently banned at least two such subreddits called 'r/deepfakes' and 'r/deepfakesNSFW' which already had thousands of members, and were distributing fake pornographic videos of various celebrities, like Taylor Swift, Meghan Markle, and the likes. Other platforms, like Discord, Gyfcat, Pornhub and Twitter, meanwhile, accept also banned non-consensual confront-swap porn on their platforms.

Beyond violation of private privacy, Ovadya says such videos could accept a destabilizing consequence on the world, if used for political gains. They can "create the belief that an event has occurred" to influence geopolitics and economy. All yous need is to feed the AI with equally much footage of a target politician as possible, and accept them morphed on another video saying potentially damaging things.

The ane sliver of hope, however, is that people are finally admitting that they were wrong to shut out the threat from fake news 2 years ago. Co-ordinate to Ovadya, "In the beginning it was actually bleak — few listened. But the last few months have been really promising. Some of the checks and balances are beginning to autumn into identify". While information technology'south certainly a positive that technologists are looking to address a problem that'south expected to get worse in the coming years, it will exist interesting to meet how well they volition exist prepared for the upcoming information warfare when nosotros are finally presented with the worst example scenario, given that, "a lot of the alarm signs accept already happened", according to Ovadya.

Source: https://beebom.com/infocalypse-aviv-ovadya-deepfakes-fake-news/

Posted by: esquivelhavery.blogspot.com

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