7 points

Maybe we could stop giving a platform to the crazies that foster those stories. Both of them; the idiots that see ai artefacts everywhere but also the fear mongers of the sort of the blog here. It reminds me of Ā«Ā be afraid of rpgsĀ Ā» in the 80ies and then Ā«Ā videos games are going to turn teens in murderersĀ Ā» in the 90iesā€¦ every new tech has curves for their maturity, cultural & societal fit. We just so happen to be at the shitty times for ai. But eventually the fad will go away, most crazies will move to something else and attention whores will also find a new niche.

permalink
report
reply
2 points
*

every new tech has curves for their maturity, cultural & societal fit.

Iā€™d believe this ā€œnothing to see hereā€ narrative if recent ā€œadvancesā€ such as social media didnā€™t have measurable negative impacts. Things can get worse, and technology can assist that.

The voices coming out as skeptical of things, and the watchdogs telling you early on that these newly introduced things may present a problem are ultimately part of the apparatus that gets you ā€œcultural and societal fitā€. That doesnā€™t happen automatically and itā€™s called ā€œthe bleeding edgeā€ for a reason.

Ultimately, Iā€™m also not so sure about AI being a fad at this point. It sure looks like enough capital is invested in this stuff to make it be a thing even if nobody wants it.

permalink
report
parent
reply
15 points

The ā€œhow will we know if itā€™s realā€ question has the same answer as it always has. Check if the source is reputable and find multiple reputable sources to see if they agree.

ā€œIs there a photo of the thingā€ has never been a particularly great way of judging whether something is accurately described in the news. This is just people finding out something they should have already known.

If the concern is over the verifiability of the photos themselves, there are technical solutions that can be used for that problem.

permalink
report
reply
18 points
*

big oof.

We can conclude: that photo isnā€™t AI-generated. You canā€™t get an AI system to generate photos of an existing location; itā€™s just not possible given the current state of the art.

the author of this substack is woefully misinformed about the state of technology šŸ¤¦

it has, in fact, been possible for several years already for anyone to quickly generate convincing images (not to mention videos) of fictional scenes in real locations with very little effort.

The photographā€”which appeared on the Associated Press feed, I thinkā€”was simply taken from a higher vantage point.

Wow, it keeps getting worse. Theyā€™re going full CSI on this photo, drawing a circle around a building on google street view where they think the photographer might have been, but they arenā€™t even going to bother to try to confirm their vague memory of having seen AP publishing it? wtf?

Fwiw, I also thought the image looked a little neural network-y (something about the slightly less-straight-than-they-used-to-be lines of some of the vehicles) so i spent a few seconds doing a reverse image search and found this snopes page from which i am convinced that that particular pileup of cars really did happen as it was also photographed by multiple other people.

permalink
report
reply
4 points

The photo seems off somehow, I wonder if it is taken with a phone with some kind of AI sharpening algorithm.

permalink
report
reply
1 point

I think itā€™s just because all the stuff has so much sludge from the flood on it that it looks washed up, like most AI content does. There are almost no straight edges, just like with AI, because everything has been roughed up by the water.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

iā€™ve seen another trend lately where any edited photo gets labelled as AI, even when traditional editing methods are more likely

permalink
report
parent
reply
28 points
*

Sorry, big derailment of subject here:

The author described 40cm of rain, which was unusual to me, since we normally describe the rain in millimetres.

Then they translated it to American as 16 inches or 70 gallons per square yard.

The neat thing about 400 mm is, that itā€™s also 400 litres per square metre.

And itā€™s also crazy much, my heart goes out to Valencia.

permalink
report
reply
3 points

The author described 40cm of rain, which was unusual to me, since we normally describe the rain in millimetres

Thatā€™s the point of sensible units. Itā€™s exactly the same thing.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Technology

!technology@lemmy.world

Create post

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


Community stats

  • 16K

    Monthly active users

  • 12K

    Posts

  • 550K

    Comments