Take the example to the extreme: In 10 years, I prompt my photo album app "Generate photorealistic video of my mother playing with a ladybug".
The juxtaposition of something that looks extremely real (your mother) and something that never happened (ladybug) is something that's hard for the mind to reconcile.
The presence of a real thing inadvertently and subconsciously gives confidence to the fake thing also being real.
I think this hooks in quite well to the existing dialogue about movies in particular. Take an action movie. It looks real but is entirely fabricated.
It is indeed something that society has to shift to deal with.
Personally, I'm not sure that it's the photoreal aspect that poses the biggest challenge. I think that we are mentally prepared to handle that as long as it's not out of control (malicious deep-fakes used to personally target and harass people, etc.) I think the biggest challenge has already been identified, namely, passing off fake media as being real. If we know something is fake, we can put a mental filter in place, like a movie. If there is no way to know what is real and what is fake, then our perception reality itself starts to break down. That would be a major new shift, and certainly not one that I think would be positive.
I'm still waiting on the future waves of PTSD from hyper realistic horror games. I can't think of a worse thing to do then hand a kid a VR headset (or game system) and have them play a game that is designed to activate every single fight or flight nerve in the body on a level that is almost indistinguishable from reality. 20 years ago that would have been the plot to a torture porn flick.
Even worse than that is when people get USED to it and no longer have a natural aversion to horrific scenes taking place in the real world.
This AI stuff accelerates that process of illusion but in every possible direction at once.
As much as people don't want to believe it, by beholding we are indeed changed.
Distinguishing reality from fiction is useful, but it doesn’t shape our desires or define our values. As a culture, we’ve grown colder and more detached. Think of the first Dracula film—audiences were so shaken by a simple eerie face that some reportedly lost control in the theater. Compare that visceral reaction to the apathy we feel toward far more shocking imagery today.
If media didn’t profoundly affect us, how could exposure therapy rewire fears? Why would billions be spent on advertising if it didn’t work? Why would propaganda or education exist if ideas couldn’t be planted and nurtured through storytelling?
Is there any meaningful difference between a sermon from the pulpit and a feature film in the theater? Both are designed to influence, persuade, and reshape our worldview.
As Alan Moore aptly put it:
"Art is, like magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words, or images to achieve changes in consciousness."
In my opinion the old adage holds true, you are what you eat. And we will soon be eating unimaginable mountains of artificial content cooked up by dream engines tuned to our every desire and whim.
> Distinguishing reality from fiction is useful, but it doesn’t shape our desires or define our values. As a culture, we’ve grown colder and more detached. Think of the first Dracula film—audiences were so shaken by a simple eerie face that some reportedly lost control in the theater. Compare that visceral reaction to the apathy we feel toward far more shocking imagery today.
Huh? The first half of this contradicts the second. We haven't "grown colder and more detached", we've adapted to the fact that images are no longer reliable indicators of reality. What we do and don't value in the real world hasn't changed.
> And we will soon be eating unimaginable mountains of artificial content cooked up by dream engines tuned to our every desire and whim.
Always has been. Multi-channel TV was already that, and attracted the same kind of doomerism.
I looked at the Sora videos and all the subject "weights" and "heft" are off. And in the same way that Anna Taylor-Joy's jump in the The Gorge at the end of the new movie trailer looked not much better than years-ago Spiderman swinging on a rope.
The juxtaposition of something that looks extremely real (your mother) and something that never happened (ladybug) is something that's hard for the mind to reconcile.
The presence of a real thing inadvertently and subconsciously gives confidence to the fake thing also being real.