Even if the most crippling legislation was passed to ban such technology from law abiding citizens, criminals would still have their E2E messaging and the deepfakers would have AI at their disposal. Hate to be a doomer, but the smoke is already out of the box, what can you do?
I agree that CFC bans are a good example of when something was done.
But I can also name many situations in which nothing effective was done. And even in the face of overwhelming effort to halt it, the resistance amounted to little difference.
The difference all comes down to the technology.
So, my argument is that there are some technologies which can be addressed, and others which cannot.
Solveable problems tend towards those with few decision makers, low incentive to defect, adherence can be monitored, costs are internal, and where the problem exists at top-level of large organizations.
Unsolveable problems tend towards those with lots of decision makers, high incentives to defect, difficult to detect violators, costs are external, and the problem is personal.
CFCs fall more in the the former--there just aren't that many CFC manufacturers (apparently 18 companies accounted for > 99% of production). Consider for a second, an alternate world where everyone builds their own refrigerants in their garage, and each individual decided whether to use CFCs or an alternative. Do you think we would have solved CFCs by now?
This particular issue is very much the latter. The tech is already out in the open. The decision to use it responsibility or not is left to individuals.
You mentioned foisting externalities on the rest of society. I agree that this is happening. And I agree that society will not stand for it. But my point is not that society is going to accept it, it's that society cannot do anything about it. Oh, people will shout and stomp and raise hell. Hearing will be had. People will be lambasted in front of congress. Voters will decry politicians to do something. And efforts will be attempted. But in the end, it will all be for naught.
I realize this is a doomer outlook. Please don't mistake what I am saying as an endorsement.
It's 2030 and deepfakes run rampant. This is a problem creating political deepfakes, celebrity fake porn, CSAM, fake revenge porn, etc.
Apple builds on their Spatial Photo feature, and their newest smartphones allows POR, or Proof of Reality.
Proof of Reality: Data from multiple cameras and a LIDAR sensor are stitched together to generate a 3d depth-map + color map that can validate that a photo or video was shot without post-production manipulation. This processing is done on-chip, on a Secure Enclave-like chip, and cryptographically embedded in the following photo. Each raw capture starts as the first block of a blockchain; further images or videos that are created from this raw data are understood to be downstream of this first block.
A piece of Proof-of-Reality media, edited together with multiple clips or images, can be cryptographically verified that it is composed out of individual Proof-of-Reality media. Like a Merkle tree.
Apple pioneers the first fully Deepfake-proof media workflow. Consumers can watch news media or social media while being cryptographically assured that it wasn't AI-generated.
2031: Proof-Of-Reality (POR) starts to catch on in public. Samsung gets on the bandwagon, and develops their own version (or joins a POR consortium). Soon, 40% of media is POR-validated, following the usual smartphone & OS update statistics.
2032: A particular egregious deepfake scandal from a non-POR source drives the rush towards POR standardization. Apple and/or the POR consortium partners begin to produce more professional-level POR camera equipment. Content blockers that block non-POR media become developed.
2033: Certain social media websites begin to place labels notices on non-POR media. POR-media consists of 70% of all news & social media.
2034: News media companies fully switch over to a POR-workflow. Browsers start adopting non-POR labels for content, like Twitter's 'Community Notes'.
2035: Deepfakes as we know it are mostly hidden from the public eye, but continues to evolve and change in unexpected ways..
However, I hate to be a nitpicker, but I think this is solving a separate issue. I don't think this issue is about authenticating the legitimacy of deep fake porn. Rather, the mere existence of it is the issue.
That is, people don't care that it's fake. People don't want to buy the Apple proof of reality because they don't want reality.
2036: Due to increasing amounts of deepfake CSAM, the US's Congress passes a law against unconsensual deepfake porn, requiring "websites of sexual nature" to be POR-compliant or be shut down. Porn web companies, ISPs/hosting providers, and credit card processors alike are legally liable.
Pornhub welcomes this change with cheeky 'PORnhub' branding, but the reality is that change is necessary or they will be sued out of oblivion.
Prosumer platforms like OnlyFans welcome POR-validation with wide arms, because it bolsters their image of authenticity. Exploiting the ban on deepfake porn, "softfake porn", where celebrity look-alikes create porn, becomes mildly popular.
2037: Eventually, ISP / hosting providers / credit card processors that instigate the change. Much like SESTA/FOSTA's impact on sex workers in the early 2020s, payment processors and ISPs refuse to work with POR-unvalidated porn sites. Eventually, porn sites shift towards POR-compliance, and create new niches.
Of course, underground deepfake porn still exists, if you know where to look. But by now, its associated reputation with CSAM makes it very inaccessible and disdained.
Gone are the days of rampant deepfakes in the late 2020s and early 2030s. Mainstream media and politics call this a success, but a minority are angry, saying that deepfakes are a creative act, and the effective ban on POR-noncompliant material is a further restriction on creative liberties. ..
2031: As deepfake technology becomes more sophisticated and cheaper, it starts to replace traditional media production methods. Major studios and media companies lobby for and receive regulatory approval to use deepfakes as a legitimate form of content creation. This shift is justified by the reduced cost and logistical ease of using AI-generated characters instead of real actors.
2032: A scandal arises involving a particularly damaging deepfake, but instead of driving a push towards authenticity verification technologies, it leads to further normalization of deepfakes. The argument is made that since distinguishing between real and fake content is increasingly difficult, society should adapt to accepting deepfake content as a new norm.
2033: Social media platforms and news outlets begin to openly embrace deepfake technology, citing cost reduction and the ability to generate more engaging content. Traditional media actors and creators are increasingly marginalized, with deepfake creators dominating the market.
2034: Regulatory bodies, heavily influenced by big tech and media conglomerates, begin to actively promote deepfake content. New regulations make it easier for deepfake content to be produced and disseminated, while traditional media production is bogged down by increased costs and regulatory hurdles.
2035: The public gradually accepts deepfakes as the primary form of digital content. Traditional media, with real actors and genuine locations, becomes a niche market due to its higher production costs and complexity. Deepfakes evolve in unexpected ways, permeating every aspect of digital media and blurring the line between reality and AI-generated content.
I think our disagreement is quite narrow. I subscribe to the view that everything in history is contingent and nothing is inevitable. I gather you believe some things are inevitable, and that the particulars of a technology might make certain things inevitable. Thank you for elaborating.
Sometimes we're not able to mitigate the harms of technology; fossil fuels come to mind. But I would argue this has next to nothing to do with fuel technology. It's because there are power people in our society who have successfully slow walked a transition to alternatives. But they haven't managed to stop it altogether - solar, wind, and EVs are seeing widespread deployment.
The tech industry has been able to do this to some extent, but I don't think they have nearly the political capital of the fossil fuel industry. We're seeing increasing calls in the US to regulate the tech industry and to break up the larger companies. While the two parties aren't able to cooperate on nearly any legislation at this time, this attitude is bipartisan. The EU has already begun to regulate the tech industry. (I can't comment usefully on the rest of the world.)
I do agree that the properties you enumerated make a problem easier or more difficult to solve, and that there's no way to stop people from making deepfake porn altogether. But that doesn't mean there isn't anything to be done about it, even if you and I might not be smart enough or positioned correctly to understand what that might be.
My goal is to convince people not to give up on the idea that something could be done, and not to become entrenched in a certain position. Eg, if someone doesn't like that X responded by disallowing searches, I don't want to have yet another argument about whether or not this is a free speech issue. I want to hear that person offering a critique I haven't heard before, asking interesting questions, suggesting bad or partly formed ideas about what to do differently. And I don't want to see the rest of us start a flamewar beneath their comment, I really to see the rest of us pointing out weaknesses in a proposed solution and how we might address them. I want to see this community being creative and constructive about this, and I believe that really could make a difference.
If we set aside doomerism, the worst thing that can happen is that we're wrong. That's not so bad; let's chance it.
Some more examples include unleaded gasoline, breaks without asbestos, paint and cosmetics that don't include heavy metals, light bulbs that are much more efficient, etc. We've also figured out how to make fuels that don't contain all much sulfur, thus avoiding issues with acid rain.
This is an attitude I see on HN a lot. Technological innovation is seen as unstoppable and all powerful - until it's time to innovate new ways to address the problems we've created, and then there's apparently no possibility of coming up with innovative solutions. We're to accept ourselves as passive actors, caught up in the currents of history, with no agency to alter course.
An example that I find haunting is OceanGate and Stockton Rush. Rush was all for being innovative when it came to novel submersible construction. But when his engineers wanted to inspect the hull for degradation - can't be done, the hull is too thick to scan. You might expect someone who views themselves as a fearless innovator to see that as an opportunity to develop a new methodology or technology. But Rush was only a fearless innovator when it pleased him, and so he took himself and his customers to their deaths.
Frankly I think this attitude is a bad excuse, and not one that society will tolerate forever. This is the path to crippling regulations and trust busting. We can't just foist our externalities on the rest of society forever and not expect them to eventually decide we're incapable of self regulating.