Now that deep fake technology are here, things can finally get back to normal!

Abstract

I advance the position that deepfakes bring the end of a brief 100ish year exceptional period in history during which, photograph and audio recordings could be trusted as reliable evidence. I posit that deepfakes return us to the normal that existed for most of human history before the advent of modern recording technology. This is a contrasting perspective to the common fear that deepfakes and AI generated media make it impossible to tell what is real.

Normal for a Hundred Thousand Years

Humans communicate through gossip. We always have. Throughout history, our ancestors only knew a thing with certainty when they witnessed it with their own eyes and ears and senses. Everything else was a rumor.

When encountered with a rumor, people had to judge it on their own as likely true or likely false or possibly true, better find out or possibly true, but irrelevant etc.

It was a common to have to assess claims such as:

• “This snake oil will heal all your ailments, ma’am”
• “This car is in great shape and a great price for the number of miles on it”
• “My girlfriend goes to Perkins” (or whatever nearby school district)
• “Bitconeeeeeect!!!”

It was common when I was in middle school and high school for someone to claim that they had a girlfriend or boyfriend, but you just didn’t know them because they went to a different school. This is the inspiration for the cover photo.

Testimony Reputation Systems

There were tools available for the job, and everyone was skilled in using them. One was reputation systems. When I hear something from my mother, it is likely to be true. But when I hear it from a gossip magazine, maybe it’s false. Other sources might fall in between. Reputation systems were important and everyone knew how to use and maintain one. When you learn that someone lied to you you have to update your understanding of their reputation and gossip that update to your own network in order for the whole thing to work.

Reality Check

Another tool was checking for consistency with reality. If I hear that gravity will stop working tomorrow, I may not believe it because it conflicts with what I’ve experienced my whole life.

Evidence

Evidence speaks for itself. Sometimes a rumor is accompanied by evidence. For example a rumor that your wealthy master abroad has requested you to send the gold reserves, may be accompanied by a sealed letter in the masters handwriting. The handwriting, signature, and wax seal may be used as somewhat objective evidence to authenticate the rumor without relying on the reputation of the messenger. Evidence can also be forged.

For a really interesting read about forgeries and attempts to undermine evidence, read about Mark Hoffman, the Mormon Forger.

Discernment

Occasionally these tools can conflict with each other. Imagine you hear a rumor that aliens are invading. It doesn’t sound very believable or consistent with what you know. But if a lot of trusted people believe it and are acting on it, is there something you are missing? At Calvin College I learned that there is a mystical process called discernment that allows you to know the truth in such situations and for $30k/year you too can master discernment see calvin dot edu slash admissions for details.

Enter Photographs

Then came photography. First it was slow and expensive. Photos were more realistic than most paintings, and making paintings as realistic as a photo took a huge effort and the fake could be discovered. Then it got faster and more ubiquitous. Today it is possible to have a life-like photograph of anything with nearly no cost and most people have a camera in their pocket as the default.

Suddenly, thanks to the evidence of photograhpy, we could know things well beyond our experience with near certainty. Just show me a photo of it and I would be a fool not to believe. Humans got used to knowing whether something was true or not. Our ability to maintain our own reputation systems, and judge the trustworthiness and truthiness of rumors has atrophied.

Cryptography Still Speaks for Itself

As a side note, there are some forms of evidence that still speak for themselves such as cryptographic signatures and proofs of work.

Proof-of-work has the nice property that it can be relayed through untrusted middlemen. We don’t have to worry about a chain of custody of communication. It doesn’t matter who tells you a longest chain, the proof-of-work speaks for itself. — Satoshi Nakamoto

Back to Normal

Now, anyone can lie again. There is still more snakeoil to be pedaled. The return to this state hurts in the same way that going for a run hurts after a long winter of sitting on your butt atrophying. We now hve to get our truth-discernment and social reputation skills back in shape.

This is the lowest point. Many people still have the notion to trust photos as evidence. The idea that photos can be faked is too new and hard to grasp. Many people also still government on reputation. The reality that government is not trustworthy is undetectable by their atrophied reputation management skills. Today many are vulnerable to be misled by untrue narrative without any significant ability to discern for themselves.

It’s about damn time things got back to normal.