Artificial intelligence has made it more difficult than ever to separate fact from fiction. That’s why it’s imperative to check the facts before reacting to anything you see in the media.
Twitter TWTR, +0.93% Facebook FB, +3.26% Microsoft MSFT, +0.14% and similar technology companies possess copious amounts of data on every individual using their services. Until not too long ago, this info was difficult to use, simply because of its sheer size and complexity. Human analysts would need years and thousands of working hours to define, detect and follow complex trends that the data point out. By that time, new trends would have formed, and researchers would have wasted their time.
All this changed with the advent of artificial intelligence, or AI. Artificial intelligence thrives on being fed huge amounts of data, running it through algorithms and coming up with trends and detecting patterns almost in real time. For the first time, AI has allowed companies to understand the flow of information and sentiment on a global scale. Now they not only understand the data, they can also measure it, sell it and, finally, manipulate it.
Age of surveillance
Governments covet this data, which means we’re in a new age of surveillance and espionage. Modern espionage is no longer bound by national borders and real-world covert operations. Instead, it is based on data manipulation and propaganda, injected directly into globally popular online media hubs.
He who controls the public sentiment, controls the nation. Spread enough misinformation and you can cause uprisings and revolts that can destabilize a political regime or make a certain country or region more vulnerable to manipulation.
In the past, governments would delegate such tasks to mainstream media, which was often expensive and difficult. The machinery that needed to be set in motion required coordination with both media professionals and institutions. In certain cases, events would be recorded in studios, and fake witnesses, often actors, were engaged to give the entire scene a whiff of authenticity. The resulting footage was then used to sway public opinion.
Cheap technology
Nowadays, you don’t need studios and actors. All you require is a good PC and AI. Artificial intelligence is capable of generating fake faces (click the link, load and press the refresh button and AI will generate a new face with each refresh), attaching them to another subject and making them act out anything, in a generated fake environment. In case you don’t want to use a nonexistent individual, AI can also attach a real person’s face to any type of footage and have them say whatever you want.
This footage can further be optimized in post-production, and the final result is a perfectly authentic visual forgery ready to be published online. Publish enough of these and people will start to react. YouTubers will dissect the footage, blogs will post about it, and controversies will abound. Once a critical mass is reached, mainstream media will pick it up. On social-media platforms, conflicting groups will form.
Then it is up to the organization that released the fake footage to keep adding fuel to the fire, and this online conflict can easily spill over into politics: Politicians and celebrities will try to curry favor with the public by voicing their own opinion on the matter, thus breaking the news to those who gravitate toward them.
Since we live in an age of modern activism, the final step would be to organize public demonstrations. United under a common banner, civilian groups will clash with one another (or directly with authorities), and if done “right,” the unrest can burst across a country like wildfire.
Political conflicts
But it’s not over yet. This conflict may result in bordering countries and strategic partners rethinking their relationship with the affected country and either lending a hand or imposing sanctions, thus affecting the global balance of power in one way or another. Soon, an entire region can be engulfed in conflict, all because of a carefully orchestrated fake news campaign covering an event that never happened.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. As individuals, there isn’t much we can do to stop such abuse of our privacy and right to information, but as a group, we can shift the tide by doing what many of us do while executing our investment strategy: Use a healthy dose of skepticism and fact checking, and make sure news you consume come from diversified, reliable sources.
Stay safe.
Jurica Dujmovic writes about technology for MarketWatch. Follow him on Twitter.
Get the top tech stories of the day delivered to your inbox. Subscribe to MarketWatch's free Tech Daily newsletter. Sign up here.
