The Porn article struck a nerve. Sorry but its the tip of a very big iceberg
The 5 Extra Helpings Vacation Edition
SECONDI: 5 Follows to recent Techtonic stories
1. The Euphemism Brigade are not stopping AI porn
I reported about OpenAI opening up to porn (don’t forget gore), but it is a much deeper and growing market. There are many providers who shift around the various AI models having figured out simple ways to break the balsa wood guardrails. This means that all a porn user needs is a solitary image of a person and a specific prompt to generate a porn video for their elucidation (being scientists remember). That’s right a single photo, maybe taken in a clandestine manner.
But it is not really porn. Experts like Hany Farid of UC Berkeley call these creations NCII. See I feel better already. A nice bland acronym is all I’m creating, nothing bad or harmful. The acronym stands for Nonconsensual Intimate Images. See it is intimate and that is a good word, right? Yes I might have surveilled you to snap photos in secret, but I was merely being intimate.
Between the over-intellectual pap from our current academia to libertarians who blanche at the word guardrail, we are only a few months from several paid for, specially trained AI products that will generate every possible type of porn for such enthusiasts. (A huge percentage of our population).
What is the harm? These images and videos aren’t real. That wasn’t really a topless Taylor Swift I just spent 10 minutes staring at. OK, there is the non-consensual aspect of this buzzy term. There must be some consensual intimate images coming done the path, mustn’t there? Then all is ok, right?
I have already talked about our delusion in separating reality from illusion, and it will catch us hard on the porn issue. There are a few people trying to stop it. “While the lewd photos and videos may be fake, the harms to victims of these AI-generated deepfakes are very real. My DEFIANCE Act would finally give victims the ability to hold perpetrators accountable, and it’s time for Congress to pass it into law,” Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
I wish I could believe in being defiant, but I think that there will be no way of stopping the approaching AI porn circus that will generate a lot of cash for some enterprising new businesses, besides all the image and video slop. In today’s world commerce is beautiful. Just beautiful!
2. Sagan on the loss of our critical thinking skill
Ongoing research has shown that the more we use AI in a deep manner, the more our critical thinking skills weaken. A video from the 1990s has been floating through several social platforms. In it Carl Sagan warns of the reliance on science and technology when the general public lacks deep understanding of these fields. “Sagan emphasized that science is not just knowledge but a method of skeptical inquiry. He warned that if people lose the ability to question authority and think critically, society becomes vulnerable to manipulation by charlatans, whether political or religious.”
Sagan was more interested in the power and control aspects of his prediction, especially leading to political problems. I am more interested in the delusion many people have about how little they know about fundamental STEM knowledge. I have argued with a couple of people who think that because they use a desktop computer AND a smart phone, plus 20 of so applications they are technically astute. They are confusing simplistic savviness with knowledge. Otherwise why are so many of them writing and talking about AI like it is magic.
3. A “Where has Customer Service Gone?” story
One of my Facebook friends just posted about losing his smartphone and, after a week, still not having any replacement. He visited two of this huge telecom company’s mall boutiques, where the humans there told him they couldn’t help him. He had to do it on the corporate website. He found - as I have as well despite my level of technical literacy - that their website was nearly impossible to navigate. He tried email support. Nothing after 48 hours. This is a lost smartphone people; we cannot exist without them for more than 2 hours, where are you?
Astute readers know what is coming next. He called by phone - this is a PHONE company after all - and the automated AI phonebot refused to put him through to a real breathing person to help him get sorted. But he is one of the heroes. He is going to leave this great company, and go to a competitor. Unfortunately the choices are slim as he lives in Canada. But the decision is the right one.
The last time I wrote about our dwindling customer service, some people took exception. They pointed out that there are still are some superb firms when it comes to customer service. I’d dial back the adjective superb two notches before agreeing. However, this is the Michael Jordan fallacy. Sure there are a handful of companies who still delivery the goods as it were. Most though are mediocre, striving to drop to poor, for extra cost savings.
The last two stories are for the budding cybercriminals. There are just so many areas for growth in this blossoming vocation
4. Ransomware as a service
I read about a highly sophisticated cybercrime, where some cagey criminals outsourced to another hacking group part of their scheme (link lost unfortunately). The outsourcers bombarded the target company with a load of phishing emails, which is fairly simple to do. This meant that the company’s IT group went on high alert. The masterminds (who were NOT teenage geniuses working from their basement!) then reached out to help the Help Desk by claiming expertise with this particular attack. They were given access, hacked through a series of known problematic programs and did the dirty deed.
5. Cybercriminals increase your haul by 35%
I’m just testing possible PR for a new service hack to be offered to cybercriminals. A recent academic (read rigorous) study found that AI agents have several different vulnerabilities (plus they are roaming more freely through the internet) that should cause us all to be concerned. Will we be? No this stuff is magic!
“Honey, what happened to our bank balance, we seem to be in overdraft?”
MENU MISTAKES
Paralysis by analysis. Here is the definitive information about it for the unreality generated by AI. Those of you that experience writer’s block, remember you are in good company with the centipedes
That’s a wrap, written in record time. My hands are just shaking a little bit with the caffeine. Off for sun, beach and my favourite beer in the world, Imperial. See you maybe on Thursday. Share, restack, like or comment to help spread the word.
Well now that we have a nice acronym that tidies it up for me! I feel like we're all the slow boiling frogs at this point. It's like the chaos train has left the station and slowly rolling off the tracks.
Nonconsensual intimate images eh? (I’m glad they gave it a nice, cold acronym).
The line between virtual and real is getting blurrier, and it’s not just the privacy breach that’s concerning, it’s the complete lack of accountability. As much as some may dismiss it as “not real,” the psychological and social impacts are disturbingly real. And I’m with you here - there’s money to be made, and we’re already seeing the floodgates open.
Man, Sagan was ahead of his time. People these days may think owning a phone and using a couple of apps makes them tech-savvy, but tech-savvy doesn’t mean knowledgeable.
Heck, people have a hard time distinguishing “convenience” from true understanding, and that’s a serious problem for a society that increasingly relies on tech to make decisions for us.
Speaking about cybercriminals, even despite all the recent hacks and compromises, companies are still not taking this stuff seriously. mind boggling, really, David.
Happy Monday to you.