Although not targeted in the attack, an American woman who had come to protest blocked the road. An ICE agent can be seen taking the handle of the car's door. She backs up and then moves forward, probably trying to escape. Another officer returned fire by shooting the woman.
Until a few years ago, most people in the world had never seen a human die. Later, with the spread of mobile phones, it became commonplace. Today, we see shootings, fatalities, plane crashes, executions, and even people being struck by lightning and dying straight away. But there's also an even more hilarious and surprising video clip of killer whales working together to push a seal off an iceberg. However, it may not be much fun for the seals.
People have probably seen some amazing things in the past, but never a sight so widespread and remarkable. It's strange that we aren't surprised enough about this. This is not only because of the invention of the smartphone, but also because it has now become so popular that there are just as many phones everywhere there are humans.
This is all very new. Even 10 years ago, the very definition of a noteworthy event was the absence of video of it. Nowadays, if something noteworthy happens and there is no video recording of it, it is seen as a mystery or something fishy.
The sheer number of such videos has made us less shocked and less surprised. We have gone from being witnesses to tragedy to being consumers. Yet, we still retained some of our ability to be surprised by extraordinary events. That's because we believed our eyes. The stolen video was proof that something had happened. Today, that is gone, and the last layer of our collective innocence has been removed as well.
The proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) video is complicating the ultimate relationship between humans and nature: “Seeing is believing.'' Suddenly, we not only do not wonder about the unusual events on the screen, we begin to suspect that it is fake. And when it becomes clear that the event is not real, our pursuit of wonder is thwarted. Because if AI can create such a reality, it will diminish reality itself.
The extraordinary video era is one of the shortest periods of new human experience. Even electronic typewriters and pagers, which were destined to be a very brief part of human life, seem to have lasted longer.
At least electronic typewriters and pagers were honorably abolished by more advanced ideas. The flood of AI-generated videos, although powered by rapidly evolving technology, are all aimed at deceiving people and making money through mass appeal. Oddly enough, many of the fake AI videos out there are of wild animals attacking women.
Generally, AI reels look very real, but you can easily tell they are fake. Take my word for it, I have a 100% success rate when calling them (to myself). Usually, apart from the fact that lions and tigers attack young women, it is characterized by how well-made they are. They are clear, well-constructed, and more noteworthy than what we are used to seeing.
This is another aspect of the extraordinary video evolution that has been disrupted by AI. Nowadays, anything better than amazing has a fake stamp on it. But soon, it will be difficult to maintain success rates in identifying fakes. Reel makers will start creating videos that mimic human timing misfortune. The action will be relatively unremarkable and awkwardly framed.
Good things may happen. Just as mind-blowing visual effects in movies have made it more valuable for Tom Cruise to do things that any half-baked stuntman could do, the proliferation of AI video may restore the value we once placed on real-life events. It's such a special thing these days for a star to do something “real,” like jumping out of a plane, that studios think it's worth a hefty insurance claim. They even spend money to promote that fact.
But all things considered, we seem to have lost the form of wonder. Over the past five years or so, real videos have reduced our ability to be shocked, and now AI fakes have reduced our ability to trust what we see. It seems that only the appearance of aliens or gods shocks us.
But if our reactions to extraordinary videos are any indication, we may be briefly startled by their illusions before becoming accustomed to the extraordinary, and then growing tired of it.
The only images that retain our primordial wonder are cosmic images. For example, one of the most famous photographs to emerge recently is that of a “black hole.” This is a dense object whose gravity is so strong that not even light can escape from it, and as a result it is invisible to the naked eye. As a result, it has become invisible and until recently remained a theoretical phenomenon, still only a theory for niche scientists who doubt its existence.
But there is an “image” of a black hole that has excited millions of people around the world. But it's not an actual image as we know it, but a reconstruction of data put together to produce what the human eye sees. But the world paid it the ultimate tribute. I believed what I saw.
The author is a journalist, novelist, and creator of the Netflix series “Decoupled.”
