The hottest Synthetic media Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Technology Topics

My Fake AI Problem

John’s Substack • 17 implied HN points • 05 Feb 26
🕹 Technology Synthetic media
  1. AI-generated fake videos can be so convincing that even people who know the subject well may be fooled.
  2. This is a widespread problem affecting many public figures, and platform enforcement struggles mean removing fakes often feels like a whack-a-mole effort.
  3. There may not be a clear solution yet, so everyone should stay alert and verify videos before trusting or sharing them.

In artificial intelligence the world is always what we want it to be and it is so before we act.

World Game • 7 implied HN points • 27 Jan 26
🕹 Technology Synthetic media
  1. AI functions as an external world-builder rather than just mimicking human thought, creating virtual realities that can stand in for the physical world.
  2. Digitally-native activities like software development and online commerce are easiest to automate, while tasks tied to historical contingency or embodied human contexts, such as law or healthcare, will be much harder to reproduce.
  3. Building these metaverse-like worlds will be a long, fragile process full of setbacks, attacks, and competition, and it risks producing polished, wish-fulfilling fictions that distance us from a shared reality.

The uncanny valley of everything

Kyle Chayka Industries • 71 implied HN points • 27 Mar 23
🕹 Technology Synthetic media
  1. AI is advancing to the point of replacing human tasks, like writing emails and designing itineraries.
  2. Current AI tools are not as advanced as marketing claims, lacking true originality and insight.
  3. Emerging synthetic media from AI blurs the line between real and fake content, impacting various forms of media.

Seeing isn't always believing: video edition

Conspirador Norteño • 36 implied HN points • 17 Feb 24
🕹 Technology Synthetic media
  1. The advancement of text-to-video generative AI like Sora raises concerns about deceptive video content, introducing the concept of the "liar's dividend."
  2. Despite impressive quality, AI-generated videos by Sora exhibit anomalies that reveal their synthetic origins, such as sudden appearance and disappearance of objects.
  3. While AI-generated videos can be photorealistic, they often contain telltale signs of synthetic generation, cautioning against an excessive distrust of all videos and emphasizing the long-standing history of manipulating video content.

GAN-tastic catfishing

Conspirador Norteño • 3 HN points • 20 Aug 23
🕹 Technology Synthetic media
  1. Some inauthentic social media accounts use artificially generated faces to create fictional personas that are accepted as real
  2. Fake accounts like "Paul Fox" and "Gabby" use stolen images to fabricate their online lives and engage with followers
  3. As synthetic media technology improves, it is important for social media platforms to require disclosure of synthetic images to address deception
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Trent Crawford & Stanton Cornish-Ward: LOCK

Do Not Research • 0 implied HN points • 15 Feb 22
🎨 Art & Illustration Synthetic media
  1. LOCK (2021) is a speculative film about decentralized personal-development movements and peer to peer therapy called LOCK.
  2. The film merges film production stock footage with artificial intelligence techniques like DeepFakes, Image Breeding, and SPADE to explore contemporary cinema fueled by web 3.0.
  3. The project aims to spark conversations about digital isolationism, presenting a hybrid reality of decentralized, autonomous, and radicalized individuals through immersive video installations.