Episode 34 - The AI Deception

What happens when you can no longer trust what you see?

In this episode of Arcane Station, we explore the rise of AI-generated media and how it’s reshaping the way we understand evidence, not just in politics, but in the world of cryptids and the paranormal.

We examine real historical cases where narrative and perception were shaped, sometimes intentionally,  including the story of Paul Bennewitz in 1980s New Mexico, MK-Ultra,  and Operation Northwoods. These documented events show that misinformation, disinformation, and psychological influence are not new… only the tools have changed.

AI introduces something more dangerous than deception: doubt.

When any video can be fabricated, and any real footage can be dismissed as “AI,” evidence itself becomes unstable. In that environment, belief shifts from what we can verify… to who we trust.

And that has consequences.

For politics.
 For society.
 And for the search for the unknown.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everybody, I'm Mike Porter and this is Arcane Station. I want to talk to you today about AI. And the thing I want to talk about is that AI is being used everywhere. Like we're there's no escaping it. Anytime you use Google, it's going to first pull up an AI agent that will give you a response. The other thing that's always happening is that most social media stuff stuff that's posted currently is all AI. There's AI generated text, there's AI generated imagery, there's AI generated videos. And again, there's no getting around it. There's no getting away from it. It's just ubiquitous now. And even if you don't think AI is involved in something, it actually is. Now, they're putting a lot of time, money, and effort into AI because they think it's going to completely revolutionize and change how we do things. And for the most part, it does do that. But I think there's some elements to that, to AI in particular, which is frustrating not only to artists, and I know there's some artists out there that are losing their jobs to AI. And there's lots of big companies that are trying to remove people from the equation by using AI to automate a lot of stuff. And I think automation is good to a certain extent. However, when you use AI quite a bit, you come to see its limitations pretty easily. Now, I'm a professor at a university, and there's a lot of stuff that we do that and a lot of universities are doing. They're really embedding into the AI because they feel like there's there's some uh innovations there, and I do believe there is, and I just think we're using it for the wrong purposes. And one of those purposes that's very frustrating is you'll see videos that are supposed cryptids, and you look at this and you think, okay, clearly that's not real, it can't be real, um, because it's doing some really incredible things, or this is the clearest Bigfoot video, the clearest dogman video you've ever seen in your life. And you see that many of these things, not all of them, but many of them have this tagline down at the bottom that says Sora. And it'll clearly indicate that it actually is AI. But there's loads of other videos that people are producing and promoting that are not, um they're not stating that they were made with AI, that they are proof, and this is where um things are going to become challenging and problematic for a variety of reasons. So the first of those problems is that it erodes trust. So when you have AI that's being used to the extent that it's being used, and for the purposes that it's being used, it begins to erode trust in anything that you see or hear. I've watched videos where people's faces uh face changes. There's a really good one, uh Deep Fakes, of Bill Bill Heater on a show doing impersonations of Arnold Schwarzenegger and um I'm trying to remember his name now. Um Al Pacino of Tom Hanks, and when he's doing these impersonations, someone has taken those and done deep fakes with them, so the face changes along with the voice. Now, somebody that does an ex incredible impersonation of someone, uh obviously it's easy to fake information, uh, especially when you have people that are doing really convincing um impersonations of people. But when you start including the visuals of that person, that's when it becomes problematic because they are able to make someone look like they are saying a thing and uh look like it's the person saying it. And there's also uh tools out where you can take any celebrity's voice and you can replicate it. Uh so basically, you can replicate their imagery, you can replicate their voices, and you make them say and do anything you want to. And it previously, when you were doing these sort of face replacements and audio, they would have to hire the actor for the audio. And then the face replacements took someone who was skilled at digital compositing to make those changes for the film or whatever. Now, someone in their computer at home can create something that would rival visually rival some of the best Hollywood effects. Now, I've been watching quite a few videos out there. There's one in particular where someone's trying to make full-length movies with AI, and there's lots of things that make no sense. The explosions, all that stuff looks really cool, but what's missing from that is the artistic understanding of how to create a movie that makes sense and causes issues with um ensuring that the things that you're seeing are cohesive, um believable, and have a heart. And that's what's missing from a lot of these things. You'll see incredibly um expressive and interesting explosions and actors moving through a scene fighting, but it always just looks really chaotic and glitchy, and that's gonna change at some point in time. Some point they're going to perfect uh through the use of AI. All of these actions in the sequences are gonna look more realistic, but they're still gonna be missing the heart of an artist. Um and I've used AI, and people have been upset with me using it, um, but I don't use it for anything that's like I'm not taking someone's job. I did post a couple of things, um, and there's certainly ethical challenges around AI in terms of water usage and electricity usage and things like that. So there's loads of stuff out there that's problematic with AI in general. But the erosion of trust of what you're seeing is going to be the biggest challenge that we're gonna have with AI that I see. Now, conspiracies, um, I you know, I don't want to get political because um that's not what this channel is about. This channel or this podcast is about all the strange, bizarre, and interesting things, and I will talk about conspiracies, I will talk about weird stuff, um, but I don't want to get political because my political views are my own and probably different from a lot of other people's, and um rather than alienating anyone, what I'm gonna do is just keep my opinions to myself. But you have seen um AI being used quite extensively politically recently, and there's been um fake crowds um and um you know, like images of someone emerging from a plane with a big crowd in front of them, but zero people in the reflection of the plane. Or there's been massive um and they they did this previously with um with just understanding visual, like practical visual effects. They would make crowds look much larger by having people sort of concentrated in one small area and then shoot that and make it look like there's massive amounts of people when it's really just you know maybe a thousand people crowded around a reporter as opposed to a hundred thousand people out in an area. So visually they're already doing these sorts of things, deception and bias, um, from both sides, right? So both sides are doing deception and bias, and um and with AI it becomes much more easily and readily available to do massive things that look and sound real but aren't. So I'm gonna talk a bit about deception in general and conspiracies. So um the government is not above conspiring against uh the people, and it's fact the conspiracy theories was actually made up by the CIA to make people who were giving um their thoughts about what was happening a title so people could look at that and make a snap decision about the person. A conspiracy theory. So a conspiracy in general is just three or more people getting together and conspiring to do something, right? So the conspiracy theory is that there were three or more people conspiring to do something, and you think they're going to do that, and you could be right or wrong. There's your theory, I think they're doing this, therefore I'm a conspiracy theorist. And what people will talk about things that have happened in the past, right? So, um, and they were given this title of a conspiracy theorist, and they were told that they were wrong, and then you come to find out that it in fact they were correct, and the government was giving misinformation to try to offset or uh obfocate what they were talking about, right? So take for example MKUltra. So from 1953 to 1973, the CIA conducted experiments involving mind control, drug testing, and psychological manipulation. So basically brainwashing, um, and they were doing this with lots of people in the 60s and 70s, and Charles Manson may have been one of those people where they were um utilizing psychotrophic drugs, psychedelic drugs, and um using, you know, brainwashing to try to get people to become the sleeper agents. And there's um there's certainly some movies about this which are pretty interesting. And then take for instance the men who stare at goats. There is a movie about that where I think it was the 50s or 60s, they were actually trying to do remote viewing and and um psychic attacking people, right? They were trying to kill goats by staring at them and thinking that they were gonna kill the goats. So that was a conspiracy theory for a very long time. Now there's there's a difference between uh denying and trying to purposely um create this, you know, interesting information. Um trying to think of one in particular. There was one that absolutely kind of blew me away. Okay, so there was a guy that used to live uh in Albuquerque, New Mexico, so this is the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, guy named Paul Benewitz. He was an electronics expert, and he was living near Kirtland Air Force Base and the um Mazzano weapons storage area. And he began observing strange aerial lights and then signals and then patterns, um, and then using his equipment, he believed he was intercepting communications from something that was non-human. And so what happened is um the the military there began feeding him this information. Like he heard this information, he's like, hey, this is non-human intelligence that's sending out these things, and I'm I'm seeing like UFOs around it. And so he's he contacted the military to try to help them out. He's like, hey, I'm getting this information, I'm gonna help you with this information that I have. So instead of saying something like, Um, no, that's that's classified, it's our stuff, uh, please stop, uh, or you know, uh face face criminal charges, what they did is they started feeding stories about alien bases and underground facilities and extraterrestrial communication, and he believed it. So he his beliefs in those things intensified and his conclusions became more extreme. And by the mid-1980s, his mental health had deteriorated so significantly that he was eventually hospitalized hospitalized. So all of this different disinformation uh operation that took place and made this man suffer a mental breakdown, that's all documented. So the exact scope of what was done is still debated, but he was actually um misinformed and um led to believe that there were aliens that were underground the base underground, underneath the base, and they were trying to stop them. The US Air Force was trying to stop them, and his contributions were very helpful. Um so the government is not above uh feeding us differ from disinformation. And they're also not above controlling narrative, you know. So um there's lots of stuff that there's um there was a proposed plan called Operation Northwoods in 1962 that um they were suggesting staging incidents to justify military action, and then eventually this was declassified. There's the Gulf of Tonkin incidents in 1964 where um they use this questionable uh event to justify escalation into Vietnam. So if there's a purpose behind what they're wanting to do, they will do it, right? So the the concern is that AI is becoming so good that not only would they utilize it for disinformation, I think they would utilize it as propaganda. Now, what's interesting, uh let me look this up here real quick. Um so there was a a thing that a bill that came through, which is concerning. Um and it's called the Smith Munt Act. Now the Smith Munt Month Act was a propaganda a proposed bill that allowed propaganda to be used on the American people. Which is concerning, right? So uh let me just talk about this for a minute. So the current ban, which also exempts cover material from a release under the Freedom of Infrarite Information Act, so it has its origins in the red baiting days of your and I'm reading this right now from uh ACLU. Um the Smith Month Act of nineteen forty-eight was a ban that basically was utilizing that allowed us to utilize uh propaganda. Now the newest version of that bill, section two hundred eight, allowed it to be used on the US people. So this allows um there so they have this Voice of America um rule. There's there's there's a two-source rule. One is that no journalist may present information as fact without two corroborating independent sources, uh, has a legal obligation to present news accurately in an unbiased fashion, and explicitly requires journalists to present alternative opinions or responses when reporting on a charge or accusation by one group or individual against another. Now, what's happening is that those those rules are not being utilized, and um the revocation of the Smith Mund Act allows for pop propaganda to be used on the American people. So with that, um the challenge becomes that um previously when you were trying to do something nefarious or something that was um meant to disinform, there was typically a lot of work that w went into it. You had to film things, you had to uh quote people, or you had to edit people saying something, or you had to uh leave out pertinent information to try to make look someone look bad. There's a lot of things that you have to do, you had to do in order to take raw information and convert it into some sort of propaganda for your purpose. And I'm again I'm not I'm not saying either side is uh good or right in this. I think there's loads of uh problematic issues on both sides. Okay. Now, with the advent of AI, this becomes as simple as typing in a prompt to get the output that you want. And there used to be a barrier of entry of having some sort of skill, um, some sort of artistic ability, or some sort of filmmaking or uh writing that forced you to create in a way that um was a work product that somebody had to work through an output, and it took time and effort. Now it's I type in a prompt, I get a result instantaneously. Um and what's really interesting with this is most most of the AI is being used for very frivolous things. You know, like there's a there's a meme out there about seeing a picture of somebody or like kittens with machine guns or something like that, and it says this is the reason why um a graphics card is nine hundred dollars, or this is the reason why RAM is nine hundred dollars, is because it's being utilized by these um these AI farms uh to generate content. Now, not to mention the millions of gallons of waters that that are being utilized as well for the cooling purposes and things like that. There's loads of problem again, there's loads of problematic issues with AI. But people are putting out um and I'm gonna tie it back into the cryptids. People are putting out all these videos of all these different cryptid uh uh you know, like sightings or um things that are taking place, and again they're becoming more and more realistic, and every generation of these things becomes an issue uh because it becomes more difficult to know if that is a real thing or if it's not real. And I think there needs to be some sort of um law enacted in that if any of anything that is generated with AI is utilized, then it needs to be stated as um AI sourced or AI. Need to explain what AI is doing and that, right? Specifically the visual stuff. Um I mean writing as well becomes problematic, um, like if you're doing journalism or you're doing um you're writing a book or whatever, there's a lot of issues around AI in that respect as well. So, um one of the videos that I've seen, there's a there's a YouTube channel called The World According to AI, and what they do is they have these vlogs of Bigfoot with aliens or dogman or um like Bigfoot caught a park ranger, and it's them talking to a camera running through the woods as if they are like um an influencer. And they're fairly they're fairly respectable looking in terms of like movement and voice talking and things like that. Um I saw one on Facebook recently, a video of a Bigfoot, and they're like Oh wow, this is the clearest Bigfoot videos you've ever seen. And it's like someone tracking, like standing right next to a Bigfoot, tracking its movement up a rock as it glides effortlessly and without any sort of realistic articulation of its limbs up the side of a cliff. And you know, right now I can I can pretty pretty easily tell what's AI and what's not, and I know that's coming, a day's coming where I'm not going to be able to, uh, because it's going to become so good. So here's the challenge around this. Um, cryptids are already a contentious space. Like people already make fun of people for thinking that cryptids are real. Uh again, uh, I I know I say this almost every time, but I want to be clear. Like, I believe if you've had an experience, then you've had one, and no one's going to tell you differently if you didn't. And I've had multiple conversations with people at events where I look them in the eye, they tell me their story. Um, I had one lady that I was talking to um, elegantly dressed, she was um she's a realtor. She told me a story about her sister and herself riding on a trail on horses, and a Bigfoot rent went right across, and she's like, from that point on, I was just like trying to figure out what this thing is, and she was not the typical person that you would see at a Bigfoot conference. I'm the typical person that you see at a Bigfoot conference, a big old boy with a belly and a long beard and a cowboy cap, you know, telling stories about what they've seen and what's happened to them. That's typically what you'll find there. Um, however, she was uh an executive and had this experience that she couldn't explain, and was and it was like reaching out to a community that embraces that, um, to to tell her story to basically offload what she's experienced in a way um where people are receptive to her conversation. And you don't get that in a lot of places. So the way that this AI is eroding trust is going to make it more difficult for people to have legitimate experiences and discuss it because with the erosion of trust also um comes the ridicule of the people who know better than you. And um there's a lot of people out there that make their decisions based on misinformation, and so they'll they'll argue with you about things. Um and again, I'm not gonna get political, but I've had conversations with people about the effectiveness of N N95 masks when a smoke smoke particulate is larger than a um C19 virus particulate, and yet the smoke particulate can go through an N95 mask. It's not used for smoke. You would have to have serious um you would have to have serious coverage, probably with a respirator, uh, in order to ensure that you will be safe from viruses. Right? So a a paper N95 mask is not going to be effective against most things if a smoke particulate which is quite large will will go will pass right through the fabric. So um here's where the challenge lies, and what we need to, I think, um look at doing. I think we need to push people, push our senators or congress people to pass laws about just informing um if you've made something with AI, then you need to inform about the AI, specifically the video and audio that is depicting someone doing something or doing things that are not um what they actually did. I think we need to have a very clear caption saying stating that this is parody, it is AI generated, these are not the real people, right? Like I'm sure you've seen the fights, the fist fight videos of Trump and Zelensky in the White House, or Joe Rogan versus um I'm trying to remember who was he was fighting with. There's a video of Joe Rogan fighting uh Keanu Reeves inside the studio, and again it looks fairly convincing, although the movements are really wonky. I think there needs to be clear labeling of AI. Now, in the case of the Bigfoot and all that other stuff, like that also needs to be claimed if it's being used. If you're using it to enhance video, that's one thing. If you're using it to create video, that's something else entirely. And I think a lot of people are really becoming um adverse to seeing AI. I know a lot of the younger generation, um, and I'm talking from experience, there's a lot of people, um this is in video game. If your game is made with AI, typically people do not want to engage with it. Um the Steam is finding that many people are not interested in AI games at all. They call it AI slop. Same thing with some of these videos, it's AI slop. Um publishers are not publishing books that are AI slop. Um, and so people are publishing self-publishing books in places like um the Kindle, you know, digital library or Amazon, and they're producing this digital books by the hundreds, and they're giving them out for free because uh nobody will actually publish it. You've also heard heard stories about people publishing um food foraging books extensively with AI, and therefore someone has actually uh, I believe, died from a food foraging book that was generated by AI and was not tested or validated, or the person that was doing that had no understanding of what they were doing out in the woods. So that challenge is going to be not only in video and not only in audio, but also like written word. I think there's gonna have to be labeling that says how AI was used and what they're gonna do about it. Now the problem lies in the fact that the government's just gonna do whatever they want to do, and so if they decide that they want to use AI for propaganda purposes, they can absolutely do so. If they want to use AI to start a war, they could. Um there's AI being used right now in the Iran um Israel-US um conflict currently, there's AI being used by Iranians, there's AI being used by the Israelis, there's AI being used by the US. And they're they're creating this narrative of who's which side is doing better. So, all that being said, I think as discerning citizens, you're gonna have to be extra vigilant in understanding what you're engaging with. If you see something that is politically charged, um take a minute to think about it. You know, would that person really do or say that thing? Um I know people are being uh told hor horrendous stuff about everybody right now. Uh take a moment to actually do your own research instead of just looking into um or just instead of just listening to what's happening and then saying that's exactly what's happening, maybe take a moment to uh use some critical thinking skills. Stop. Would that person would that person really do that? Is it logical for them to do that? How would that benefit them or how would that harm them? If the harm outweighs the benefit, then absolutely they probably did not do that. Now there's cases where people do. And so we'll just have to uh start becoming more critical and thinking more clearly because when when the news agencies on both sides are um just reporting biased information, you're not ever gonna get the truth. So you have to look for truth in a variety of ways, and uh one of those is looking at multiple news sources, the other one is uh trying to find telltale signs of um the use of usage of AI, and there's plenty of places to do that. There's online, there's AI detectors, if it's becoming more challenging, but if you see a video, you can upload it to this thing and it'll to say whether or not there's actually AI being used, right? So there's ways to figure out whether or not the things that you're looking at is real or not. Alright, that's all I have time for today. Um, if you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you. Um I know someone reached out to me and wanted me to have this guest on, but I uh I'm a little confused about why they sent me information about this person because I don't know if it's actually the right person for this podcast. Um but I would love to talk to you. I would love to have a conversation with y'all. Uh maybe get somebody on to have a conversation about an experience that they've had or uh something that they've seen and they want to talk about. Um let's just start using more critical thinking and ensuring that you know the other person, the other person on the other side maybe has the same intention in mind, and they're just looking at it from a different perspective. Um I'll leave you with this one thing. There's this um there's this concept where there's there's two people looking at um a ball from either side, and one s one half of the ball is black and the other half of the ball is white. And they're standing, one person looks and sees only the black side of the ball, and the other person on the other side looks and they only see white, the white side of the ball. And as they're having a conversation, they're arguing about what color the ball is. Well, the third person who's looking at it from a different perspective is like, no, it's both black and white, and that could even be left and right and right and left, right? So there's clearly everybody's looking at the same thing, they're just looking at it from a slightly different perspective. And so as you go throughout your day, try to look at things from that other person's perspective. Why are they doing the things that they're doing? How can I have a good conversation about this that's respectful and engaging, and maybe I can see their side of the situation, and maybe we can come to this conclusion together that you know encapsulates both of our understandings of a subject. I think the difficulty with the AI is that makes it more challenging, but I think uh clearly when you spend more time engaging in a conversation about the thing in a respectful and meaningful way, it becomes easier to look at it more critically and decide, hey, maybe you're right on this part and I'm right on this part, and together we come up with the better um definition of what the thing is. So I challenge you to do that. Take a moment in your life and try to look at someone else's uh side of the story and see if you can find a way to bridge that gap. You have a wonderful evening.