Synthetic Media

The issue of synthetic media, fake news, etc., has occupied my mind for a good 10 years. I've wondered whether it's possible to combat this phenomenon and, if so, how. Last week, I met with a group of very interesting people who are dealing with this issue. The discussion reinforced my belief that the more technology we have, the more serious this problem will become.

Synthetic media has its justified basis. Initially, in the "Dark Ages," depictions of gods were painted or sculpted. Why? So that the “ordinary citizen” could imagine them. Large, terrifying, or kind and beautiful. This trend was also evident in portrait painting. During expeditions, travelers made sketches and colored them with their imaginations. They often added numerous descriptions to highlight elements they wanted to draw attention to. With the advent of photography, it turned out that people didn't look nice enough to sell at a good price. So, what was done? In post-production, noses, skin, etc., were smoothed out. Just retouching "imperfections" wasn't the end of the great deception. Technology evolved and it was possible to refine manipulation techniques.

Today, this is an easy, cheap, and nearly perfect process. With the development of AI, we encounter synthetic media even more. Not just audio and video, but also text so well composed that non-existent sources are created and cited by authors.

In my opinion, this issue is extremely important for the next 10 years. If we cannot control synthetic media reliably and affordably, we will not only lose touch with reality, but all artificial intelligence algorithms will start learning from a fabricated reality (which they will largely fabricate themselves).

In 2012, I conducted an experiment. I created a photo (the blog's cover image) by combining three parts. I put it in an online gallery asking for comments. Since it has three of the four necessary elements of success for a photo on a social profile (apart from nudity – poverty - violence) namely a person, the sea, and/or a romantic view, as well as color contrast, it appealed to countless people. Many asked where it was. Where is such a fantastic view? Apart from a handful of people who noticed the manipulation and wrote that the statue is from Monaco but it doesn't look like that, most claimed they must go there someday. Some even claimed they had seen the place and had similar photos.

We simply want to see beautiful things, and hear about successes (but only those that are achievable for us or someone convincingly persuades us). Our reality is gray and monotonous, so a little retouching seems harmless to no one. But it is harmful, very harmful.

This photo is dedicated to all those who deliberately manipulate reality, to make them think about how much damage this can cause.