Well, this is weird:
I endured a lot yesterday.
But having my body and outfit photoshopped by a media outlet was not on my bingo card.
Note the enlarged boobs and outfit to be made more revealing.
Can’t imagine this happening to a male MP.
What gives? pic.twitter.com/NhnkDRMidc
— Georgie Purcell (@georgievpurcell) January 29, 2024
The folks at Nine News in Melbourne say that Photoshop AI just did this on its own volition—which is, needless to say, not even possible. But that's their story and they're (so far) sticking to it.
Welcome to the brave new world of generative AI. It can produce phone calls allegedly from Joe Biden. It can create photorealistic nude pictures of Taylor Swift. And now it's an all-purpose excuse when you get caught doing something idiotic.
And we were here! The Singularity is now!
Possibly of interest is this from Steve Waldman last month:
"Here is my two point plan for what Congress should do:
Congress should declare that big-data AI models do not infringe copyright, but are inherently in the public domain.
Congress should declare that use of AI tools will be an aggravating rather than mitigating factor in determinations of civil and criminal liability."
https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2023/12/28/how-to-regulate-ai/index.html
That's actually a good idea.
Tools are tools, if someone uses it for copyright theft, or whatever, it should jack up the offense, just like using a gun would.
Journalists are the creepiest media people.
And while media people are creepy in general, this relentless march into AI and the connected world is surely going to end badly even if it doesn't drown the world in paper clips! Humanity really is in a suicide pact with "technology". Climate catastrophe can't come soon enough!
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-disabled-chinese-hacking-network-targeting-critical-infrastructure-sources-2024-01-29/
Jan 29 (Reuters) - The U.S. government in recent months launched an operation to fight a pervasive Chinese hacking operation that successfully compromised thousands of internet-connected devices, according to two Western security officials and one person familiar with the matter.
"How it works is the Chinese are taking control of a camera or modem that is positioned geographically right next to a port or ISP (internet service provider) and then using that destination to route their intrusions into the real target," said a former official familiar with the matter. "To the IT team at the downstream target it just looks like a normal, native user that's sitting nearby."
The use of so-called botnets by both government and criminal hackers to launder their cyber operations is not new. The approach is often used when an attacker wants to quickly target numerous victims simultaneously or seeks to hide their origins.
Humanity will never cooperate to the degree necessary to prevent climate catastrophe... or any catastrophe. Not ever.
Journalists are unpaid interns, from wealthy families, with profound social media addictions.
""Photoshop AI just did this on its own volition"—which is, needless to say, not even possible."
I would have thought that a little while ago, but I just started playing with my Pixel 8's camera and it offered a "magic AI enhancement" option when I started editing my pictures. I really haven't figured out what it does yet, but it sounds close to doing things "on its own volition".
More research is necessary?
Yes. And for many decades earlier, back when "cameras" used "film", the automatic developing machines where you'd send it to be "developed" and "printed" (weird, huh?) would enbluen the skies and enpinken the human faces automatically.
It was hard to get true colors from a commercial developing lab.
I'm a lot older than I look in that photo, so yeah, been there done that. We don't have the developer problem anymore (mostly, and different films had their own color sensitivities and differences even before the developer got to them), but I still get photos printed. It's hard for me to tease out the effects between the camera sensors and the print process. It certainly looks different between the camera, the computer screen when I'm editing and what finally comes out of the printer.
Pictures taken using film and camera sensors look different because camera sensors have a linear response to light intensity, while film (and the human eye) have a logarithmic response to light intensity.
Camera sensors are great at taking scientific images where you want to measure light intensity linearly, but they don't have the range that film and the human eye have.
Film and the human eye "turn down the bright" and "raise up the faint". They compress the brightness range into something that we naturally manage better than a linear response.
...which you can totally do with a histogram of the light, giving up high dynamic range digital pictures, so it looks like you perceived it.
The way to address the AI issue is to start by understanding AI.
The way to understand artificial intelligence is to start by understanding the "intelligence" concept.
The way to understand intelligence is to understand science.
The way to understand science is to stop thinking about the scientific method until you understand the two scientific principles. Better yet, forget the second principle and just understand the first principle, which is the first sentence in the second paragraph in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
First principle translation: treat a person that disagrees with you the way you want to be treated.
Option 1: start with that understanding and then think about understanding AI and/or anything else.
Option 2: ignore the principle that is the stabilizing foundation upon which every legitimate practice of science was developed, then assume people that disagree with you are wrong by default (including me and whoever wrote that Wikipedia article), then carry on as per usual.
Option 3: Treat me the way I want to be treated and give me a valid reason to think I'm mistaken.
My intent is not to be antagonistic, just unambiguous.
@Jim Carey
Can there be an exception to your first principle translation if we're dealing with someone who cheats on his taxes, cheats at golf, cheats on his wives, and lies about everything his whole life? I mean, what are the chances he is disagreeing with me based on careful study and empirical data? Asking for a friend.
My AI would have left her exactly how she is - but would have covered up those overdone, cliche tattoos with a shawl.
+1
honestly I can't tell much difference between the images..
my first response was to think the AI had added those ludicrous tattoos 😉
Scapegoat may be AI's most useful function.
How did she endure getting the tats done? That looks more unendurable than getting photoshopped.
Do the kids now days get them because the stupid cool kids all get them?
I my youth folks with tats were Sailors, Circus People, Motorcycle Gang Members and other strange people.
Who cares how people wish to decorate themselves?
Tattoos are a public eye sore. You have the right to do them but I have the right to say they are ugly.
Sabine Hossenfelder on Google's AlphaGeometry,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrNjvIrCqII&t=334s
Also, why does the other woman in the picture appear to be staring down at her chest? Is that part of the AI too?
It took a while for me to figure out which one was supposed to be "more revealing".
Georgie Purcell is a Legislative Council member in Victoria. That's an upper house seat - like being a State senator in the USA.
She's both a qualified lawyer and has a communications degree as well as law degree.
She was Chief of Staff to a previous councillor from the Animal Justice Party, which she represents.
The fuss about her modified photo is because she has been subject to salacious shaming for years; she was a pole dancer and a stripper at some times while she was studying for her degrees.
Hence the suspicion that the photo modification was just another step in the ongoing sexual shaming that has characterised Australian media reporting on her.
No, the other person in the press shot wasn't looking at Ms Purcell: the press shot is a montage of three different photos, related to each other only by relevance to the story.
The perpetrators of the modified photo continue to say that 'Photoshop did it for itself' despite Adobe saying the modifications were of a kind that would have had to be authorised or directed by human intervention.
thank you, that is clarifying..