Reality is Dead
Reality is dead, shattered like a mirror into millions of pieces. We are left with our own individual shards that reflect a world that only we see. Internet algorithms select from what we have seen and then drive us into narrow holes of self-reflective propaganda, advertising, and bias. The algorithms are designed to get you to click again, to “consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible,” as one of Facebook founders said.
Internet designers stimulate the brain’s dopamine function with moments of interest, pleasure, and novelty. The algorithm assumes that if you like this, you’ll like more of it. The more you click, the more they profit. However, to continue the sense of novelty, the algorithm leads from the benign to the extreme. If you believe Democrats are socialists, wait until you hear about their alleged pedophilia. In an ever downward spiral, the lie forms in your mind as the truth.
We are now living the dire consequences of this fake reality. Millions of Republicans believe the lie that the presidential election was stolen. The lie drove terrorists to invade the Capitol on January 6th. In a momentary gasp of sanity, it appeared that many Republicans would disavow the lie. But within hours Republicans were spouting new lies to deny Trump’s responsibility, to shift blame, and to sow confusion.
Suzanne Doherty made the trek from Michigan to Washington to support President Trump on January 6th. The mob violence confused her. So, the Internet swooped in to patch any holes in her world view with new lies. She told the New York Times:
I heard that on Antifa websites, people were invited to go to the rally and dress up like Trump supporters, but I’m not sure what to believe anymore. There were people there only to wreak havoc. All I know is that there was a whole gamut of people there, but the rioters were not us. Maybe they were Antifa. Maybe they were BLM. Maybe they were extreme right militants.
Since January 6th, according to the New York Times, a woman in Texas received a video through Facebook warning that the Biden administration could take children away from parents. Others believe that there will be internment camps for those not wearing masks or receiving vaccinations. Another video shows Trump being inaugurated on January 20th, 2021. It ends with a solemn reading of the Lord’s Prayer.
Politics is the contest between competing historical narratives — how each side explains the events, facts, and data leading up to the election. Democracy requires some agreement about the basic facts of the narrative. Richard Nixon resigned the Presidency when Congressional Republicans agreed with Democrats about the reality: Nixon lied. And he had to pay the price.
Reality defeated Nixon, but perhaps he can be redeemed by alternative reality. Nixon was President during the Apollo moon landing of 1969. His aides prepared two statements for Nixon to read to the American people: one a celebration of man and technology, and the other to mourn the tragic demise of our brave astronauts. In July 2020, two MIT researchers created In Event of Moon Disaster, a film about the consoling speech Nixon never gave. Except that Nixon himself gives the speech in the film. Working with two AI companies, the researchers developed a deepfake of Nixon’s face and voice.
In Event of Moon Disaster was praised by the MIT Technology Review for demonstrating “how deepfakes could bring real history to life,” and for creating “a powerful alternative history.” No matter how “powerful” this alternative history, it is still a lie. How is producing alternative history with artificial intelligence any different from the Trump administration’s alternative facts? Hearing the Nixon speech-not-given may be of passing interest. But such fabricated authenticity poisons the necessary flow of information in a democracy.
Perhaps right now someone is stitching together video and audio of a deepfake Joe Biden conceding the election.
Artificial intelligence is also poisoning the veracity of written text. Language generating software has become more and more convincing as it is trained on massive volumes of text from the internet. Artificial intelligence doesn’t understand language, it manipulates language based on algorithms that tabulate the frequency of associated words. For example, how often is “canoe” associated with “paddle” as opposed to “shit creek” and “up.”
We don’t know if text generated by artificial intelligence is true or false. And we don’t know who is responsible for its veracity. The designers and trainers of the software have no idea what text will be generated. Algorithms have produced hate speech acquired while absorbing text by the gigabyte from the Internet.
Will January 6th and Coronavirus be the motivation for Big Tech to monitor dishonesty and misinformation online? Twitter blocked Trump’s account (the largest source of Coronavirus lies). Amazon shut down the right-wing social media network, Parler. Facebook has taken steps to remove conspiracy theories.
Are these moves by Big Tech token public relations acts, or are they a sincere commitment to refute lies? Big Tech responded quickly to January 6th, but without regulation they can go back to ignoring the problems just as quickly. Click-for-profit should not drive people to extremism.
In 2019, Congress began to take bipartisan notice of the abuses of Big Tech. The DETOUR Act (Deceptive Experiences To Online Users Reduction) was immediately detoured into the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. To date, it has not been re-routed onto the floor for a vote.
The Algorithmic Accountability Act was proposed to require Big Tech to eliminate bias and discrimination from machine learning systems and ensure the privacy of all personal, biometric, and genetic data. The Algorithmic Accountability Act received no consideration on the floor of the Senate — no vote, not even a remand to a committee for rehabilitation. Since 2019, Big Tech lobbying has soared led by Facebook ($20 million in 2020) and Amazon ($18 million in 2020). These expenditures far exceed any other company in the United States. Facebook told the Wall Street Journal:
We’ve been clear that the internet needs updated regulations, which is why we’ll continue voicing our support for new rules that address today’s realities online.
Big Tech appears to be routing Congress into a dead end.
In December 2020, ten states joined together to file an antitrust lawsuit against Google’s online advertising technology. In October, the Justice Department joined eleven states to sue Google to break up its monopoly over online search engines. Also, in December, forty states and the Federal Trade Commission accused Facebook of blocking competition by buying up smaller competitors and using predatory business practices.
Breaking up the Big Tech monopolies through the courts is vital, but it is a process that will drag on for years. Furthermore, anti-trust suits are about business competition and profit, not about the integrity of language and imagery. Anti-trust action decides which companies will profit from the business model of clicks-for-profit. Congress must act to demand the veracity of Internet content, and it will do so only when voters agitate.
Meanwhile, any agreement on the reality of the election, and the future of the country, is dying, if not dead. Reality is the broken mirror-shard in your hand. And if you don’t like that, virtual reality is knocking on your door.
Congress must enact legislation requiring that deepfake imagery and text be banned — or at least be identified as fake. The Constitution gives freedom of speech to humans, not machines.
We must re-assemble the mirrors of our society so we can see multiple perspectives, not the narrow views of tiny slivers. We can start by accepting the integrity of elections, and the value of full participation in elections — the basic truths necessary for democracy.
Dan Hunter is an award-winning playwright, songwriter, teacher and founding partner of Hunter Higgs, LLC, an advocacy and communications firm. H-IQ, the Hunter Imagination Questionnaire, invented by Dan Hunter and developed by Hunter Higgs, LLC, received global recognition for innovation by Reimagine Education, the world’s largest awards program for innovative pedagogies. Out of a field of 1200 applicants from all over the world, H-IQ was one of 12 finalists in December 2022. H-IQ is being used in pilot programs in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, North Carolina and New York. He is co-author, with Dr. Rex Jung and Ranee Flores, of A New Measure of Imagination Ability: Anatomical Brain Imaging Correlates, published March 22, 2016 in The Frontiers of Psychology, an international peer-reviewed journal. He’s served as managing director of the Boston Playwrights Theatre at Boston University, published numerous plays with Baker’s Plays, and has performed his one-man show ABC, NPR, BBC and CNN. Formerly executive director of the Massachusetts Advocates for the Arts, Sciences, and Humanities (MAASH) a statewide advocacy and education group, Hunter has 25 years’ experience in politics and arts advocacy. He served as Director of the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs (a cabinet appointment requiring Senate confirmation). His most recent book, Atrophy, Apathy & Ambition,offers a layman’s investigation into artificial intelligence.