Back to reality…
We are fast approaching the point where media reality is drowned out by media fiction – and we couldn't have picked a worse moment.
Down at the bottom of this post I’m going to share some amazing new videos released by OpenAI over the past 24 hours…
… but I’m not sharing them just for the “wow” factor.
I’m sharing them because — lest we forget — there are some pretty major elections coming up this year, all around the world, and our devotion to technology has a history of making elections worse, not better.
Yesterday, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI started sharing examples of their new text-to-video AI called Sora… adding yet more grease to society’s grip on reality.
Here, in brief, is a reminder of why it matters.
What is the tech & how clever is it?
Although they’ve only been in the public domain for a year or two, most of you are probably familiar with things like ChatGPT and DALL•E … AI tools that create hyper-realistic text or images based on minimal input from their user, respectively.
What’s now emerging into the mainstream is a set of tools that stitch those still images together into 3 … now 10, even 20 second video reels for a tiny fraction of the cost of a camera .. much less the cost of going out and filming the real world.
I’ve been playing with these tools for a while — in fact I’m in the process of making a trailer for my new news product entirely using these AI tools… but until now they’ve been pretty limited.
OpenAI’s new product Sora, while eminently impressive, really just serves to remind us of the exponential acceleration in the capability — and critically, the affordability — of these tools.
But I’m not really here to talk to you about videos of puppies…
🪁 New kite, perfect storm. Welcome to 2024.
As we’ve discussed before, 2024 is set to be the biggest election year on record, with over 4 billion people going to polls worldwide.
Things haven’t started well, with a chaotic election in Pakistan (although, there is some honesty shining through) and with the US, the UK, India, Russia, Iran and dozens more still to go to the polls things are not going to improve.
So how do videos of puppies and general elections fit together?
People who vote in elections need to know truth from fiction. It’s that simple.
We’re entering this crazy election year at the same time that astonishingly cheap, realistic fake video technology comes to the market that dissolves the cognitive barrier between truth and fiction…
… and how can we trust a vote when we can trust what we voters know to be true?
The video above is a case in point. This is a report aired on France24, now circulating around Russia, that suggests Macron has cancelled a trip to Kiev for fear of assassination.
At the same time, Russia’s former President and current deputy chair of their security council, Dmitry Medvedev, is gleefully using the assertions made in the video to excoriate Macron for cancelling his trip.
But the video isn’t real. At all.
What this single, tiny drop in the ocean of social media demonstrates is the ease and speed with which something totally realistic … but totally fake … can be created, propagated and then cited by those in power … going from something imagined (the video) to something real (Medvedev’s commentary).
The video might be “taken down” (obviously it won’t) but Medvedev’s comments stand.
Hasn’t this always happened?…
Of course, in many respects, I’m not telling you anything new.
Our politicians, here in the UK, have always been happy to score points by misrepresenting what opposition politicians say and mean, simply by clipping real news broadcasts carefully.
The US election is neck deep in what appears to be blatant Russian interference that required no clever AI video … but has made impeachment of their sitting president a real possibility in the run up to their November elections.
… not quite.
Don’t be fooled though. This isn’t like any election year we’ve seen before.
This isn’t because the technology has made any specific trick possible that wasn’t possible last time around…
… but because the volume of fake content we’re going to see this year — made possible by the speed, simplicity, accuracy and cost with which these photorealistic videos can be produced — is going to overwhelm our fundamental sense of reality.
People have always cited the problem of fake news.
Citing instances of fake news misses the point.
Today, it’s still possible to point at a few tweets and highlight that these are instances of fake news in a sea of truth. But the tsunami is still on the horizon at this point.
The danger was never in single instances of fake news.
The danger comes when we can’t tell truth from fiction. The danger comes when it’s faster and cheaper to create and disseminate vast quantities of fake news than it is to report on the truth.
The danger comes when whole societies’ comprehension of the world is determined by what they see, hear and read on social media platforms that algorithmically promote sensational nonsense above meaningful truth.
The danger is that we’re heading towards a saturation point - fast!
The danger is that we once we pass the saturation point we, as voters, will no-longer be able to tell what’s real and what’s not.
The danger is that we’re about to loose our grip on reality.
A credit and a recommendation.
I would like to to credit Shayan Sardarizadeh at BBC Verify for highlighting the France24 fake this morning. You can follow him on Twitter, here.
And while I’ve got you here… if you fancy a more light-hearted, very exciting little 20 minute mini-novel playing around this topic I would like to thoroughly recommend that you grab a copy of Democracy 9-9 written by a good friend and mentor of mine under the pseudonym Susanna Kinsey. Enjoy!
Questions, comments & feedback are, of course, super-welcome.
It’s good to be back. 🫶
Sora in Action
Oh yeah… and here, as promised, are a few examples OpenAI have shared… along with the text used to create them…
“A movie trailer featuring the adventures of the 30 year old space man wearing a red wool knitted motorcycle helmet, blue sky, salt desert, cinematic style, shot on 35mm film, vivid colors.”
“Several giant wooly mammoths approach treading through a snowy meadow, their long wooly fur lightly blows in the wind as they walk, snow covered trees and dramatic snow capped mountains in the distance, mid afternoon light with wispy clouds and a sun high in the distance creates a warm glow, the low camera view is stunning capturing the large furry mammal with beautiful photography, depth of field.”
“A young man at his 20s is sitting on a piece of cloud in the sky, reading a book.”
“Drone view of waves crashing against the rugged cliffs along Big Sur’s garay point beach. The crashing blue waters create white-tipped waves, while the golden light of the setting sun illuminates the rocky shore. A small island with a lighthouse sits in the distance, and green shrubbery covers the cliff’s edge. The steep drop from the road down to the beach is a dramatic feat, with the cliff’s edges jutting out over the sea. This is a view that captures the raw beauty of the coast and the rugged landscape of the Pacific Coast Highway.”
“A stop motion animation of a flower growing out of the windowsill of a suburban house.”
“Beautiful, snowy Tokyo city is bustling. The camera moves through the bustling city street, following several people enjoying the beautiful snowy weather and shopping at nearby stalls. Gorgeous sakura petals are flying through the wind along with snowflakes.”
“A grandmother with neatly combed grey hair stands behind a colorful birthday cake with numerous candles at a wood dining room table, expression is one of pure joy and happiness, with a happy glow in her eye. She leans forward and blows out the candles with a gentle puff, the cake has pink frosting and sprinkles and the candles cease to flicker, the grandmother wears a light blue blouse adorned with floral patterns, several happy friends and family sitting at the table can be seen celebrating, out of focus. The scene is beautifully captured, cinematic, showing a 3/4 view of the grandmother and the dining room. Warm color tones and soft lighting enhance the mood..”
“A litter of golden retriever puppies playing in the snow. Their heads pop out of the snow, covered in.”
“Several giant wooly mammoths approach treading through a snowy meadow, their long wooly fur lightly blows in the wind as they walk, snow covered trees and dramatic snow capped mountains in the distance, mid afternoon light with wispy clouds and a sun high in the distance creates a warm glow, the low camera view is stunning capturing the large furry mammal with beautiful photography, depth of field.”