<story><title>Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/business/facebook-ai-generated-profiles.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nemild</author><text>One of the scariest quotes for me was Facebook&amp;#x27;s Little Red Book in 2012 (a book handed out to every employee) that had this quote:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &amp;quot;When everyone has a printing press [i.e., Facebook], the ones with the best ideas are the ones people listen to.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;In retrospect, it gives a ton of insight into the flawed beliefs within the company.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;nemild&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1006533287378968576&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;nemild&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1006533287378968576&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.businessinsider.com&amp;#x2F;inside-facebooks-little-red-book-2015-5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.businessinsider.com&amp;#x2F;inside-facebooks-little-red-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>jedberg</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s ironic that as we move into a world where anyone can be a &amp;quot;journalist&amp;quot; and anyone can have a voice, we need professional journalists more than ever.&lt;p&gt;Now a journalist will not only need training in writing well, conveying a story with facts, and investigating, but they will also need to become experts in identifying fake source material.&lt;p&gt;In a world where anyone can make a video or photo of anyone doing anything, we&amp;#x27;ll need to rely on reputable journalists to vet that material for us.&lt;p&gt;Saw a video on YouTube of the President saying something bad?  No idea if it&amp;#x27;s real anymore.&lt;p&gt;Sure, a lot of this technology has existed for a while, but it was usually in the fringes (see The National Enquirer).  Now it&amp;#x27;s going mainstream.&lt;p&gt;And the worst part is, there are a whole group of people who will not trust a professional journalist (sometimes with good reason) but will trust anyone online who happens to provide evidence that boosters their existing opinions.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>primitivesuave</author><text>In the century that the printing press was invented, one of the most popular books to be printed was the Malleus Maleficarum, which systematized the practice of witch burning in the following centuries. Better dissemination of ideas does not necessarily mean better ideas.
 &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Malleus_Maleficarum&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Malleus_Maleficarum&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/business/facebook-ai-generated-profiles.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nemild</author><text>One of the scariest quotes for me was Facebook&amp;#x27;s Little Red Book in 2012 (a book handed out to every employee) that had this quote:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &amp;quot;When everyone has a printing press [i.e., Facebook], the ones with the best ideas are the ones people listen to.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;In retrospect, it gives a ton of insight into the flawed beliefs within the company.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;nemild&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1006533287378968576&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;nemild&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1006533287378968576&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.businessinsider.com&amp;#x2F;inside-facebooks-little-red-book-2015-5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.businessinsider.com&amp;#x2F;inside-facebooks-little-red-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>jedberg</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s ironic that as we move into a world where anyone can be a &amp;quot;journalist&amp;quot; and anyone can have a voice, we need professional journalists more than ever.&lt;p&gt;Now a journalist will not only need training in writing well, conveying a story with facts, and investigating, but they will also need to become experts in identifying fake source material.&lt;p&gt;In a world where anyone can make a video or photo of anyone doing anything, we&amp;#x27;ll need to rely on reputable journalists to vet that material for us.&lt;p&gt;Saw a video on YouTube of the President saying something bad?  No idea if it&amp;#x27;s real anymore.&lt;p&gt;Sure, a lot of this technology has existed for a while, but it was usually in the fringes (see The National Enquirer).  Now it&amp;#x27;s going mainstream.&lt;p&gt;And the worst part is, there are a whole group of people who will not trust a professional journalist (sometimes with good reason) but will trust anyone online who happens to provide evidence that boosters their existing opinions.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mathgenius</author><text>In the 1850&amp;#x27;s it was widely believed that the invention of the telegraph would bring about world peace.&lt;p&gt;The problem is &lt;i&gt;language itself&lt;/i&gt;. We trust it way too much to convey meaning, and truth. But it&amp;#x27;s just a delusion, or a mirage, in much the same way that the search for artificial intelligence is. In fact, I would say that language itself &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; the first AI invented.</text></comment>