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How I Fooled the World - Then I Created Conspiracytron: The Conspiracy Slayer

Please meet the Conspiracytron: an artificial intelligence tool that will help you deal with many different arguments of conspirators (link)

to enter the conspirator

The flat earth, one of the weirdest conspiracy theories. Illustration: depositphotos.com
The flat earth, one of the weirdest conspiracy theories. Illustration: depositphotos.com

In hindsight, it may have been a mistake on my part to claim that the moon landing never happened. So here - I atone. And even with an artificial intelligence tool for everyone, which will help others avoid similar mistakes in the future. By the end of the entry you will be introduced to the Conspiracytron: The Conspiracy Slayer. An artificial intelligence tool that will help you deal with many different arguments of conspirators.

But let's start at the beginning.

About two years ago, in a happier time when ChatGPT still didn't exist and dinosaurs walked the earth, I published a post claiming that the moon landing was completely faked. I added to the post the text written by a senior administrator at NASA, in which he confessed with full emotion that they had deceived the public for decades, and even detailed what were the tools they used for the benefit of the matter. And if that's not enough, then I've also included old photos from the studio where the astronauts were photographed floating - with ropes - on the surface of the simulated moon, with the Earth watching from the sky like a second sun.

And everything, of course, is created using artificial intelligence. Absolute fake. There was no truth there.

The "manager" letter was produced by the ancestor of ChatGPT, also known as GPT3. I created the images using artificial intelligence engines such as Dall-E and Stable Diffusion. 

This was the first part of that record. No more than 300 words, in total. And immediately after that I explained how I did the work of forgery, and what the real purpose of the record is: to clarify how easy it is to use artificial intelligence tools to produce false information, which can look very convincing to uncritical eyes. I assumed as a matter of course that people would read the entry to the end - or at least more than a few hundred words - and wise up and realize that they should be more careful when consuming materials online.

I was a fool.

I posted the text with the pictures at about midnight, and went to sleep. In the morning I woke up to good-bad news: the record has been shared many times. A lot more times than I expected. The private messages were even more alarming: friends gently asked me if everything was okay. Others have invited me to join some secret societies that believe lizardmen control the government. And that was before the current coalition.

It was dedicated to one television reporter, who contacted me and asked enthusiastically if I would be willing to come and disprove the moon landing on the small screen. It turns out that reading more than 300 words is a luxury today.

Still, most people probably read to the end and understood. And the one who didn't do it - became a hoka and Atalula in the responses. The record continued to pass between people as a kind of joke with a deeper message. It was also covered in the press - not as an attempt to prove that there was no moon landing, but as a way to explain to people how important it is to develop critical thinking.

Overall, it worked.

And what has happened since then?

When Netanyahu's psychiatrist committed suicide

At the beginning of November 2023, he committed suicide Moshe is an orphan, Benjamin Netanyahu's psychiatrist. Worse than that, he shared some of Netanyahu's darkest thoughts in the documents he left behind. The news, originally published on the Global Village Space website, spread around the world like wildfire. It has been translated into many languages, including Arabic, French, Persian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Turkish and Portuguese. Some sites have added and increased and published Obituaries and condolences About the death of the psychiatrist who never existed.

The news of the psychiatrist's suicide - along with a glimpse of his patient's seemingly unflattering personality - also reached the traditional media. Iranian National Television gave them a national resonance, and also sent the viewers to read the article on the website for themselves. one Members of the Indian Parliament He shared the article, along with some particularly harsh words about Netanyahu, and his message received plenty of shares itself. 

Who would have imagined that public representatives would not be careful with their words?

Only in Israel did these false news not spread. The reason? Of course: everyone read my original post about fake news generated by artificial intelligence, and realized that they need to be more critical about everything they read online.

Which brings me to the moral of the whole story: the whole thing was a fake. But worse, it was an AI fake. 

And for a change, I wasn't behind it. 

In the two years since the record on the moon, ChatGPT was released to the general public, and suddenly everyone had the same power in their hands to produce fake texts, images, sound and even videos. As of early July 2024, NewsGuard has identified 976 websites that generate and distribute news using artificial intelligence in many languages. These sites have serious and impressive names, such as iBusiness Day or Ireland Top News, but they function almost without human supervision. They distribute articles in all fields, including politics, and often include false assertions. 

Of course, the Global Village Space site is one of those sites that generate entire articles without human contact. We cannot know for sure that the article about Netanyahu is the product of artificial intelligence, for the simple reason that it writes so well. But considering the dubious origin of all the other articles that appear on the same website - this seems very likely.

In this case, as far as can be deciphered, it was not an article made by the enemies of Israel. But countries have also already realized that artificial intelligence can be used to easily create false news. On a website run by the Chinese government, for example, one can find texts produced by AI, according to which the United States exposes camels in Kazakhstan to biological weapons in order to harm the citizens of China (which is adjacent to Kazakhstan). The NewsGuard website also identified a network of 167 Russian-linked news sites pretending to be legitimate local news sites. these sites Spreading false news about the Russia-Ukraine war, and mostly use artificial intelligence to produce their lies.

All this brings us to the inevitable conclusion that the future I wrote about two years ago has already arrived. Artificial intelligence fake news is already being produced in ever-increasing quantities. The same news spreads in social networks and traditional media and affects the way people perceive the world.

So maybe it's time to fight fire with fire?

And that's how I created "Conspiratron: The Reaper of Conspiracies".


Conspiratron: The Reaper of Conspiracies

Conspiratron is based on the same artificial intelligence that produces today's conspiracies - but with a twist. He is well aware of all the claims about the moon landing being faked. He has already read them all, and has also been exposed to all their refutations. You just have to present to him the claim about the conspiracy - and he will provide you with the answer. Just choose which category of understanding it will be adapted to: kindergarten, elementary, high school, adults, or politicians.

Currently, Conspiracytron is only adapted to answer questions about conspiracies. He also knows very well how to deal with attempts to deceive him. It certainly won't stand up to a determined attempt to trick it into delivering incorrect content, but it should be reasonably safe for children and teens. Used fairly and decently, it can provide value to anyone seeking answers to difficult questions about the moon landing. Or about conspiracies in general.

And in the future? who knows. Maybe we'll put it on its own website and add web search capabilities, new fake detection and voice explanations. If you are interested in taking part in this project - you are welcome to contact me privately. 

Want to try Conspiracytron? here he is - Right here. Try it! Share it! I would love to receive feedback in the comments and in private.

But it is important to understand that Conspiracytron cannot be the solution to the false information. It is only part of the larger solution, which must ultimately be based on education. Education for critical and skeptical thinking, education for the values ​​of moderation and seriousness, education that places the pursuit of truth as a supreme value - even if it is unpleasant, or not easy to reach.

Artificial intelligences like Conspiracytron can tell us what science says about every conspiracy and every delusional theory. But at the same time - other strong artificial intelligences will try to convince us that the conspiracies are true. In the coming years we will all stand in a war zone between many powerful artificial intelligences, some of which are operated by vested interests such as governments and giant companies. We will be exposed to their messages and we will have to use our independent thinking to distinguish between truth and lies, recognize how they try to play with our psychology and know what to beware of.

It won't be easy, but no one promised us a world in pastel colors. In a world of artificial intelligences that do everything they are told to do, we need to maintain the fundamental values ​​that led the world to the scientific revolution, and which are responsible for the continuation of our scientific-technological-social progress: the pursuit of truth. That's where it all starts.

good luck to us.

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