Good is Bad, Bad is Good, Dark is Light, Light is Dark—Isaiah 5:20
On X, captivating videos catch my eye. Some monumental news is breaking! I look at the comments. Invariably, someone will ask Grok, the AI agent, ‘Is this true?’ Half of the time, it seems, the answer is no. It is a “deep fake.”
Not only do people live in echo chambers, consuming news only palatable to them, but now the chambers are reinforced 5-fold. They even consume it knowing it is fake, thus locking-in bias.
Thus, the following, written just six years ago in ‘I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses: Searching for the Why’ has aged well:
“Fake news: the term was unheard of one year and inescapable the next. Outlets pledge to search for and destroy fake news so that others are not misled. Unfortunately, fake news may be in the eye of the beholder. Real news may be but another manifestation of, “History is written by the victors.” It is written by the interests that have outmaneuvered the competition. An unnamed tweeter posts: “Right now, everyone believes news which doesn’t fit their preconceived agenda is fake,” a situation he describes as “mental.”
“From the advent of filmmaking, countless dramatic movies have ended with the whistleblower testifying before important people, and the mighty press finally publishing The Truth! The people at last come to know! It almost will not fly anymore, since the next day the villain can easily say, “It is Fake News! People, can we move on?”
“It will only get worse. The New York Times writes about an app that makes it “relatively easy to create realistic face swaps and leave few traces of manipulation. . . . It’s not hard to imagine this technology being used to smear politicians, create counterfeit revenge porn, or frame people for crimes. Lawmakers have already begun to worry about how such deepfakes might be used for political sabotage and propaganda.” The anonymous developer cheerfully helps the Times reporter try his own hand at it. “I’ve given it a lot of thought,” he [says], “and ultimately I’ve decided I don’t think it’s right to condemn the technology itself.”4 Of course not! They never do. It’s on to the next advance of science! Let the ethicists figure out what he has just dumped in their laps, something “which can of course be used for many purposes, good and bad.” It’s their problem, not his.
“Already, news sources show an eagerness to rely upon unidentified sources that frequently turn out to be wrong. Will they handle this new advance responsibly? Not only must we anticipate dubious proven by video character assassination to become routine, but the more lasting consequence of this new technological advance may be that even genuine video evidence will be dismissed as fake news. It is Isaiah envisioned: “Ah! Those who call evil good, and good evil, who change darkness to light, and light into darkness, who change bitter to sweet, and sweet into bitter!” The guileless one so slandered will explode in moral indignation, and thus appear guilty as hell. The professional liar will shrug it off with the feigned saddened dismay that his enemies could sink so low. It may be that “the wrath of the Lord blazes against [this] people,” but not before they have enjoyed their substantial day in the sun.”
I like to quote my non-Witness neighbor, who likened the watching the news to “a bad accident. You know you should look away, but you can’t.”
It is a runaway train that you think cannot get more out-of-control, and then it does. Now, when I write something with future publication in mind, there is a very good chance that it will obsolete by the time that happens.
****** The bookstore
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