A judge in Washington state has blocked video evidence that’s been “AI-enhanced” from being submitted in a triple murder trial. And that’s a good thing, given the fact that too many people seem to think applying an AI filter can give them access to secret visual data.
If you ever encountered an AI hallucinating stuff that just does not exist at all, you know how bad the idea of AI enhanced evidence actually is.
Everyone uses the word “hallucinate” when describing visual AI because it’s normie-friendly and cool sounding, but the results are a product of math. Very complex math, yes, but computers aren’t taking drugs and randomly pooping out images because computers can’t do anything truly random.
You know what else uses math? Basically every image modification algorithm, including resizing. I wonder how this judge would feel about viewing a 720p video on a 4k courtroom TV because “hallucination” takes place in that case too.
There is a huge difference between interpolating pixels and inserting whole objects into pictures.
Both insert pixels that didn’t exist before, so where do we draw the line of how much of that is acceptable?
normie-friendly
Whenever people say things like this, I wonder why that person thinks they’re so much better than everyone else.
Tangentially related: the more people seem to support AI all the things the less it turns out they understand it.
I work in the field. I had to explain to a CIO that his beloved “ChatPPT” was just autocomplete. He become enraged. We implemented a 2015 chatbot instead, he got his bonus.
We have reached the winter of my discontent. Modern life is rubbish.
Normie, layman… as you’ve pointed out, it’s difficult to use these words without sounding condescending (which I didn’t mean to be). The media using words like “hallucinate” to describe linear algebra is necessary because most people just don’t know enough math to understand the fundamentals of deep learning - which is completely fine, people can’t know everything and everyone has their own specialties. But any time you simplify science so that it can be digestible by the masses, you lose critical information in the process, which can sometimes be harmfully misleading.
computers aren’t taking drugs and randomly pooping out images
Sure, no drugs involved, but they are running a statistically proven random number generator and using that (along with non-random data) to generate the image.
The result is this - ask for the same image, get two different images — similar, but clearly not the same person - sisters or cousins perhaps… but nowhere near usable as evidence in court:
Tell me you don’t know shit about AI without telling me you don’t know shit. You can easily reproduce the exact same image by defining the starting seed and constraining the network to a specific sequence of operations.
computers can’t do anything truly random.
Technically incorrect - computers can be supplied with sources of entropy, so while it’s true that they will produce the same output given identical inputs, it is in practice quite possible to ensure that they do not receive identical inputs if you don’t want them to.
You know what else uses math? Tripping on acid. From the chemistry used to creat it, to the fractals you see while on it, LSD is math.
Except for the important part of how LSD affects people. Can you point me to the math that precisely describes how human consciousness (not just the brain) reacts to LSD? Because I can point you to the math that precisely describes how interpolation and deep learning works.
