Reality Apathy Bites

Ann Sims | as770992@ohio.edu

 The Not Too Distant Future is Now

The idea of replicated humans isn't new.  Actually, if you think about it in terms of Blade Runner (1982), we are right on schedule.  

Sean Young as Rachael in Blade Runner, 1982 (Source: IMDb)

Instead of a certain number of replicants crafted in a lab like fictional Rachael, anyone can create their own deep fakes now.  There are so many options on icons8 to make your own AI-generated content. "The future is here.  Create a unique person with your parameters in one click!" they say on the Face Generator portion of their site.  

Sounds like you don't really need a lot of skills to create your own little army.  One that suits your parameters, even!  That is interesting to consider in the increased use of black images in media and commercials since the death of George Floyd.  How much of that is true honest representation and how much is created for show?  

Another sort of deep fakes are GANS:  Generated Adversarial Networks.  This video gives a scientific explanation of how one photo can morph Manimal-style into another.  They can create text from existing text, create photos from photos, create audio from audio, one reality from another.    

What are GANS?  Face generating & editing

This software wasn't developed by a team of scientists.  It was created by a graduate student in 2014, Ian Goodfellow.  The revolutions in tech are happening in small starts that spread quickly.  

We've already been fooled by Deep Fakes.  The Sp. a. party pulled a War of the Worlds-type stunt in Belgium to encourage voter support for the climate change treaty.  Yes, it did make people rally to their cause, but did these voters have the same trust in their leaders after that?  I wouldn't.   

It's the sAmE pHoTo!  

Icons8 is more than creating AI for content and diversity.  They even suggest using augmented photos for different apps to protect your identity by making your photos more anonymous.  They call it Synthetic Media.  

Is it moral to misrepresent your appearance on certain platforms?  What's the point of having profile pics on say a dating site if that's not what you actually look like?  

We are presented with so much Instagram Reality.  

Source:  Celebrity Tidings (above link)

Even though we're wise to the fact that anyone and everyone can and does use FaceTune and other apps to augment photos, we still believe in what we see.  Our visual sense takes in the most information and we don't even fully process all of it--there's just simply too much.  So we believe most things on their surface level and just accept it as truth.  

The role of social media is changing as well.  It's a strange brew of credibility and falseness.  The news is presented with a different sort of voice that is edited in real time and vying for attention.  We forgive minor misspellings and grammar errors.  We accept and use the filters (hey, if the camera makes me look weird because of how it captures the light, I will absolutely put my face back how it was).  But do we forgive and accept errors in truth and judgement in the same way because it's on social media?  

It's all about the INTENT.  What are you hoping to achieve with your photo augmentation?  Are you just trying to rebalance some light or are you changing something altogether?  Do you just want to look cute for the 'gram or are you selling false results?    In the meantime, we settle for partial truth.  

Faces of Death

There is no more gatekeeper when it comes to what we see on our news feeds.  The beauty of the internet is also its curse.  Anyone and everyone has a voice.  If you can create it and upload it, you can share it with the world.  There's no rules and etiquette is subjective.  

Showing real-time footage of war on the nightly news began mostly during the Vietnam War in the late 1960s/early 1970s.  The imagery was helpful in people realizing what was really happening and make their own decisions of whether or not they should support the war.  Do we need similar footage of school and other public shootings to help support some gun laws?  

The impact gets shocked away.  That's what happens when there's so much graphic imagery in our feeds.  

Not-so Comfortably Numb

Graphic news has become standard issue now.   The old adage 'if it bleeds it leads' has almost become 'if it's not bleeding, we'll stab it ourselves'.  It seems all the news is violent anymore.   We see it so much it has become common.  "Which shooting?  Oh, there's a new one?"  

 I was still processing Buffalo and Milwaukee (I often work in the Deer District next to Fiserv Forum) when Laguna Woods and Robb Elementary happened.  It's like each tragic event has to outdo the next one to be heard. 

We need a balance between not censoring so we get the truth and not being blasted with the sad state of the world.  I don't think we will find it, however.