An open question, related to cyberpunk culture.
Considering the possibilities of current social-engineering as used by social media and desinformation, to what degree ido you think it is now possible to ‘implant’ fake memories into somebody’s consciousness, without that person noticing it.
Like most of Philip K. Dick’s science fiction, it’s become increasingly plausible.
“I’m not Hauser! I’m just trying to enjoy a holiday on Mars!” - Douglas Quad, Total Recall
Well, for some time now, I have this question in the back of my mind: is cyberpunk still the future or has it become reality.
The photo-album on our smartphone has become our individual memory, stored on somebody else’s computer (“the cloud”). Our photos on social media have become our collective memory, which determines how other people interact with us, based on algorithms controlled others.
In 2024, is your memory still your own memory?
In 2024, is your memory still your own memory?
I mean, mine is. But only because I’m a paranoid old bastard with serious Cybersecurity know-how.
I’m not sure how the rest of y’all cope with the uncertainty.
That said, they definitely added that bullshit squiggle to the Ford logo pretty recently, and changed how “Bernstein Bears” is spelled. There’s no way that’s actually been like that my whole life.
Disinformation has been an active area of research since the Cold War. Yes it is effective, though obviously there are limits. Maybe you can convince people that a celebrity did something even though it’s not true, but you can’t really convince a particular invididual that they themselves have a different name and history. Here’s a good survey of the state of the art circa 2022 (skip to “Findings of qualitative analysis” to see summaries of studies): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10446021/
First … thanks all for replying. Sorry for the late reply. … know you … summer … holiday … :-)
Yes, that was indded my question. Some objective and scientific research into this. Interesting reading. Thanks.
My idea was kind-of the result of what we see in cybersecurity: What we are seeing is that with AI disinformation has become so easy and cheap, and also easy to automate. Can we assume a senario where desinformation -like phishing moving into the area of spear phising- is becoming personal.
Just wondering. Certain social media have a feature ‘remember, x years ago, you took part in this event’ (with some photo’s you shared about that event)’ What would happen if you start feeding people false information? Or semi-fake information? Including posts by other people?
I agree. Getting people to believe they took part in <some event> x years ago might not be easy. But can you get people to question certain secundairy elements. “Did I really meet <some person> during <some event> 4 years ago?”
I wonder. How many people rely on their own memories what they did in the fast? And how many rely on what the photos in their smartphone and/or social media account tell them?
Kr.
I agree. Getting people to believe they took part in <some event> x years ago might not be easy. But can you get people to question certain secundairy elements. “Did I really meet <some person> during <some event> 4 years ago?”
It would probably be pretty easy in a cult-like situation, where the person wants to believe it and has a community that supports that belief. Also, I think certain types of cognitive-behavioral therapy boil down to convincing yourself that a certain belief/memory is better managed by turning it into a different belief/memory. But that’s not something I’m as familiar with.
Some kindle books I ‘owned’ recently got updates pushed to them, which in this case included a new cover or I probably wouldn’t have noticed. In 1984 they were fucking about with recalling books and issuing ‘corrected’ ones. But with online media, centralized in a company’s server, it’s comparatively easy to push changes.
