We’re in Danger of Losing Our Most Important Resource [Trust]

TheFreePress ^ | 4/18/23 | Ted Gioia

[CFW]

Here are some news stories from recent days. Can you tell me what they have in common?

Scammers clone a teenage girl’s voice with AI—then use it to call her mother and demand a $1 million ransom.

Millions of people see a photo of Pope Francis wearing a goofy white Balenciaga puffer jacket, and think it’s real. But after the image goes viral, news media report that it was created by a construction worker in Chicago with deepfake technology.

Twitter changes requirements for verification checks. What was once a sign that you could trust somebody’s identity gets turned into a status symbol, sold to anybody willing to pay for it. Within hours, the platform is flooded with bogus checked accounts.

Officials go on TV and tell people they can trust the banking system—but depositors don’t believe them. High profile bank failures from Silicon Valley to Switzerland have them spooked. Over the course of just a few days, depositors move $100 billion from their accounts.

ChatGPT falsely accuses a professor of sexual harassment—and cites an article that doesn’t exist as its source. Adding to the fiasco, AI claims the abuse happened on a trip to Alaska, but the professor has never traveled to that state with students.

[CFW]

Good opinion piece on the loss of trust in our society and how technology and "experts" have contributed to that loss.

The headline, however, doesn't properly reflect that fact that the trust is already lost.

[Leaning Right]

That was a really cool puffy white jacket. Can anyone wear one?
Or do you have to be the pope?

[Qwapisking]

“Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see” has become “don’t believe ANYTHING!”. Is anyone else thinking we’re going to need another planet? Soon?

[Scarlett156]

If you try to think of at least two or three ways you can be obnoxious and yet verbose and original every day, you can successfully avoid being imitated. At least while you’re still alive.

Also you have to be really smart, so..... well, forget I said anything.

[Cincinnatus.45-70]

We are not losing trust. We are having our gullibility to the internet exposed.

And how do we start to fight this “All Powerful AI”? Send important information via snail mail. Shop in real stores using cash. Have no “smart” appliances, phones, cameras, etc., anywhere around and certainly not in our homes.

[glennaro]

...and how technology and "experts" have contributed to that loss

An undeniably clear and easily understood recent example of this is how, during the Fauci Flu debacle, so very many formerly deeply-trusted doctors and other "medical experts" destroyed their credibility to dispense medical advice.

As for me, although I am deeply grateful for their abilities, I no longer trust the information provided by "medical experts". Most everything they say requires a high level of skepticism and intensive investigation and evaluation before accepting it as fact ... or even as true. "Medical science" has devolved into "medical political science."

[Magnum44]

We’re in Danger of Losing Our Most Important Resource