Raw LLM Responses

A few things. First, whenever a new technology is introduced, we are optimistic. We saw that with the atomic age, leaded petrol, DDT and Teflon. Of course, the Internet was no exception. Nowadays - especially in Europe - authorities want to combat fake news. Remember the optimism. In the old days, the media were in carefully controlled hands. You "letter to the editor" was edited - if published at all. You could hand out flyers all day - and still you'd reached only a few thousand people at best. So, we had the "freedom of speech" without the obvious disadvantages. Internet was the democratization of the media. Anyone could publish a blog - and have access to a (potential) audience of millions. Now "freedom of speech" became a problem, since it could no longer be controlled. This is what essentially is "the disinformation crisis". Because the right to "the freedom of speech" says nowhere that you have to be speaking the truth. Which is the main complaint of governments - it is not true. But why decides what is true? The "fact checkers"? Fact checkers have bias as well. The BBC has got lots of criticism in that regard. The government? Really? Can they create the gold standard of truth? Are they the objective judges of what is true without any external interests? Sometimes, the medicine is worse than the illness.. I don't think you can blame the technology - or the access to it. It is us who are the problem. We are simply too eager to see the reputations destroyed of people we do not like. We devour that kind of news. We are the ones that judge and become part of the lynching mob in the process. No image can destroy a person if we weren't so eager to make hasty conclusions. How old is Photoshop? Why wasn't there panic when that one came out? I've been editing ex-girlfriends out of pictures since the nineties. Stalin edited opponents out of pictures in the fifties. So - why is this new? It was predicted in "Rising Sun", a 1993 movie (sic)! But I'll think we adapt. "It was a deep fake" will be considered a valid defense in the future - even if it's untrue. It will be as valid as "You're not that beautiful IRL, it's just a filter" (I've heard that kind of accusation being used against a truly beautiful woman). We'll be so accustomed to it that we don't consider it an impossibility. Of course, it will have an impact in the early stages. We were used to paper pictures and celluloid - those things didn't lie. But everything that is encoded in 1 and 0 can be manipulated - since it's dead simple to change a 1 to a 0 or vice versa. We embraced MP3's and digital cameras, didn't we? Ok, you suggest legislation. Well, with the volume at hand I don't give that scenario much of a chance. There are also bikes being stolen and shops are still shoplifted. I think "moderation by complaint" is a much better idea. Despite all the controversies, DMCA seems to work reasonably well for YouTube, doesn't it. And again - if you can't trace the perpetrator it's hard to sue anybody. Maybe combine it with facial recognition so a person who complained once can be filtered out from a subsequent submissions. Let AI work for the good guys this time. ;-)