by J.P. Massar
Well, now you may be, like it or not. Algorithms and processing have advanced to the point where your face may be substituted, digitally, seamlessly, and essentially undetectably (aka “deepfakes”), for that of a porn star, keeping said star’s body and the rest of film intact.
While skilled forgers have plied their trade for millennia, and skilled special effects artists have been able to make us believe temporarily in dragons and light saber battles for decades, the time is soon coming where nothing visual or auditory, created or transmitted electronically, will be able to be trusted as representing reality.
From cruel practical jokes where the voices of those you love are simulated, to officials apparently ordering plausible (or even absurd) actions they never actually issued, to photographic evidence and printed documents no longer having any standing legally, we face yet more consequences of our increasing reliance on ones and zeroes and the computers that manipulate them to define the state of our world. No longer will certain news organizations simply twist reality and fail to report what they don’t want to report, they will simply make reality up and present it as fact.
Not only are we quickly surrendering our privacy to the digital world, but we are about to surrender reality. And there may be no plausible remedy other than the fall of civilization. Happy belated 116th birthday, George O!
