Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

>I’m not even talking about some world ending thing - even GPT4 in its current form has me questioning how many comments I read are real or not - the thing can beat the Turing test in many cases!

> We are about to enter a very disturbing era of unverifiable truth and reality. It is an untenable situation for societal order and stability.

When did this stop being the case, I was raised to assume everything on the internet is a fricking lie and that every woman was actually a man in their parents basement, every child was an FBI agent, and every piece of advice I was given was for the purpose of getting me to nuke my machine for the lulz.

There were a simple rules

1. Never share any PII on the internet.

2. Never take anything on the internet seriously.

3. Don't believe anything you read on the internet.

It seems almost every major problem we are facing on the internet is because we broke one of those rules, from social media, to misinformation.




There's a few particular problems here... "The internet" is pretty much everything that you're not physically present at. Any form of communication not in person is subject to the same rules. That TV broadcast... no idea if its actually real. Someone calling you on the phone... Yea, the voice replication AIs are insane these days.

The things that used to bind societies together are quickly falling apart and will lead to distrust. Culture can quickly break down that way. Humans require culture to exist in our modern world of convenience. For example businesses require trust between each other to have exchanges for resources. You know, resources like coal for power. Or long term chemical supplies so we can keep chlorinating our water.

The Foundation series had humanity breaking down because our systems got to complex and we stopped learning. But I think a bigger part is for us at least, is we'll stop trusting anything we see or hear.


Sure, but it was still possible as there were communication formats that have been useful such as audio and video recordings good enough for evidence in court.

That is about to be lost. Soon the fakes will not be distinguishable from reality. They are good enough already to fool enough people to be disruptive. This becomes an order of magnitude worse than what we had before.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: