I’m a bit conflicted about posting a link to this nooze story, because the images are grossly offensive. I think I’ll just ask you to take my word for it.
The White House is–shall we say “upset”?–about AI-generated pictures of Taylor Swift. From spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre we have this:
“While social media companies make their own independent decisions about content managing–”
The Lie Buzzer goes off. Loudly.
What? You mean this administration has not leaned on social media companies to impose censorship wherever and whenever the White House wants it? Tell us another one!
Even Taylor Swift, even a Far Left-friendly celebrity, has a right not to be publicly depicted as doing something which she has not, in fact, done. “Artificial Intelligence” is getting way out of hand–and it’s only just started. How are we supposed to tell, anymore, what’s real and what’s not? Where is our commitment to the truth?
Let’s not lose that, shall we? It is, after all, a Commandment: thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor (No. 9 in the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:16).
P.S.–Some 20 years ago, my friend Dr. Sahai saw a supposed TV commercial depicting Shaquille O’Neal interacting with Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason, in The Honeymooners). It was, of course, fake. But he was passionate about it. “What if somebody makes a film of Sahai robbing a bank??? What do I tell the jury?” Hit the nail right on the head, he did.
There are all kinds of AI programs being created. Some Christians groups are making some based on their Biblical Worldview. That’s the point, it is the one creating them that makes them good or bad. One might think Trump’s being sued for defamation by a crazy woman who 20 years years ago says he raped was all an AI deep fake. The penalty for reacting to slander against yourself? $83 million – what country is this anyway?
Supposedly raped her in a department store changing room–what bunk.
Mankind has unleashed some very dangerous things, and I would say that the ramifications of AI rank right up there. The whole thing is frightening.
I mean, hell’s bells, we already have too many people who are reality-challenged.
Much agreed. A lot of people live in unreality, these days, and measure their real life experiences against movies or video games.
God help us.
It has long concerned me that so many people become so wrapped up in fiction that they identify with the characters and some even dress up in costumes. In my younger days, someone doing such a thing would have not been very popular. Fiction is fine, and it can be used to teach us about the human condition, but fiction cannot come to dominate our real-life experiences.
My closest friend is a fellow my age, who grew up a few hours drive from where I grew up. We didn’t know one another until we were in our twenties, having met nearly a thousand miles from where we were born. It is probably that similarity of experience which has bonded our friendship, over the years. We saw many of the same movies, and quote notable movie lines to one another frequently, with one of our favorite being from the movie Arthur, where Dudley Moore says: “I’ll get a job!” when first realizing that he doesn’t have to do his family’s bidding, any longer, even if it costs him a literal fortune. Both he and I faced moments when we realized that we were free to forge our own paths and not have to relive our parent’s lives. We refer to this as tne “I’ll get a job!” moment in our lives.
But as much as we may use these fictional movie lines as a way to analyze life, we have never identified with these movie characters, nor sought to dress or speak as if we were them. I see the character of Arthur Bach as a good object lesson, but not as a real person, and I never intend to.
The difference is drawing a line between fiction and reality. The original Star Wars was a great movie, and had some great characters, but it was not how I wish to identify myself. Where that’s concerned, I don’t want to identify myself with even an any real person. I have a lot of favorite musicians, but most of them, as people, are not anyone I’d care to imitate. One of my musical heroes, an old school guitarist, turned out to be a man with values so opposed to my own, that I would never want to be identified with him. Loved his music, but had no desire to so much as meet him.
We have to be true to God, and to ourselves.
It’s an old, old problem. It’s the one Cervantes had in mind when he wrote Don Quixote. Forget Broadway musicals: if you can read it in Spanish, it’s raw!
I recall your Solon quote, and see his point. That is not to say that I am against theater or other forms of entertainment. I’ve never acted, but I have performed music for audiences, and when I do so, I assume a degree of a persona, and “go into character”. But quantity has a lot to do with it.
For example, if a person in good health indulges themselves a piece of cake every couple of weeks, chances are that it will not harm them, in any way, but if it’s every couple of days, the results may be different. In the past, prior to television and broadcast radio, theater or music was an occasional thing for most people. A person living in a small town might attend a concert in the park occasionally, visit a local theater group on rare occasion, or perhaps see a traveling show, but every one of these events were not part of everyday life. Much like that 800 calorie piece of cake, there was plenty of time for the effects to wear off, before the next dose. In our day, however, it’s not only possible, but even common for people to have access to recorded entertainment most of the day.
Immediate access to information is not, in itself a bad thing, but some people spend a lot of their time absorbing nothing but fiction, and it’s no surprise that some of these people began to blur the line between fiction and reality.