Top Google Search Result for Tiananmen Square 'Tank Man' Is AI Generated Selfie (404media.co) 59
Slash_Account_Dot writes: The first thing you'll see if you search Google for "tank man" right now will not be the iconic picture of the unidentified Chinese man who stood in protest in front of a column of tanks leaving Tiananmen Square, but an entirely fake, AI-generated selfie of that historical event. While the AI-generated selfie doesn't appear to be deliberate misinformation, it highlights an inherent problem with the current state of generative AI and the internet: It is exceedingly easy to use AI tools to generate endless images, text, and audio with little more than a click of a button, and as this content floods every online platform, we, and the platforms we use to surface information, still don't have a good way to identify and differentiate it from human-made content, manually or automatically.
Not for me. (Score:5, Informative)
When I google "tank man", regardless of incognito, I don't even have that image on my first page of results.
So either Google fixed the issue, *OR* the person who submitted this story does not understand that Google personalizes its results and maybe bumped that up because he frequents Reddit.
Closed WORKSFORME (Score:2)
I have it in within the first few results, only from the article cited in TFS. Other that I can doomscroll google images until the results become irrelevant and I did not notice that particular image.
Re:Not for me. (Score:4, Interesting)
When I google "tank man", regardless of incognito, I don't even have that image on my first page of results.
It might have fell off within hours on its own. This is an algorithm we're talking about here, and it's quite dynamic and adaptive.
Also the thing might have dropped the result in a random sample of users' top 5 results in order to "taste test" whether people would go for that particular item.
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maybe its not newsworthy that one person has Tank Man as top result.
Okay.. Well, possibly what is more newsworthy is that it can happen; Newsworthy not necessarily because the underlying problem is brand new, but to raise awareness about an issue that is being exacerbated.
They aren't wrong in their point that a portion of the web is in danger of being filled up with AI Spam. It is similar to the isuse of low-quality Content Farm content spamming search results. Google search for many topics will g
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It might have fell off within hours on its own.
It may never have been up there to begin with. Google's algorithm tailors search results to the person who made the search. It's very likely that 404 Media spent a lot of time researching AI and that their search results were poisoned with this as a result.
Re:Not for me. (Score:5, Interesting)
Incognito Chrome puts it as the 6th. Incognito Firefox 5th. Incognito Edge 5th.
Even on my Chinese phone it's the 5th image both in the normal Chrome browser and in incognito mode.
Seems fairly consistent given that I deliberately use those google accounts for different things.
But now the big HOWEVER. All of the results seem to come from 404Media.co, specifically from the article that claims this image to be the first google result. Putting on my tin-foil hat, I smell algorithm manipulation in an attempt of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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But now the big HOWEVER. All of the results seem to come from 404Media.co, specifically from the article that claims this image to be the first google result. Putting on my tin-foil hat, I smell algorithm manipulation in an attempt of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Google tends to rate results from news sources higher than random / low ranked web sites. So just by writing an article about it they are likely to unseat the original for that particular "hit." Google will likely see the same unique image on both and rate them as duplicate content, burying the original way down the list.
Re: Not for me. (Score:2)
That's a massive failure though. The original source should be ranked up, not buried.
The original photo is a scam (Score:3, Informative)
Sort of.
Why? The photo [wikipedia.org], which has been constantly promoted by western media as evidence of wrongdoing or "evilness" of the PLA and the Chinese government, was a screenshot taken out of a video clip showing the tank trying hard to maneuver away from the man without harming him and that the man eventually walked away safely.
As the lead tank maneuvered to pass by the man, he repeatedly shifted his position in order to obstruct the tank's attempted path around him.
If it can prove anything, it is that the PLA was acting gracefully, professionally and humanely. Yet, the media has succeeded in turning it into a weapon against China. (*)
What would happe
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I see we've found Winnie-the-Pooh's Slashdot account.
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The difference of course is you can point that out in the US without being sent to prison. But yeah, other than that, we're totally just as bad as Winnie-the-Pooh's China. ;-)
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The difference of course is you can point that out in the US without being sent to prison.
I'm sure that you can keep drinking [justice.gov] the [theguardian.com] Kool-Aid [amnesty.org.uk] in the USA without being sent to the prison too.
But yeah, other than that, we're totally just as bad as Winnie-the-Pooh's China. ;-)
Likely worse [shanghaidisneyresort.com].
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Tell your PRC minders that I said hello and their boss looks like Winnie the Pooh.
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You ran out o reasons and resorted to personal attacks. Pity you. You are a disgrace of your country. Oh... majority of your countrymen are just like you nowadays. Pity them, too.
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You have evidence of that? Oddly enough, no, you don't.
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Also, the claim is:
> who stood in protest
We don't know why he stood there. The more logical conclusion, since they were leaving, was that he wanted to stop them leaving. Perhaps he wanted them to go back and finish the job properly, or offer them a sandwich (it seemed he was carrying groceries).
The presumption that he was protesting was entirely made from a biased position.
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So all you got is just the same photo we are discussing here? "Stooge" is absolutely the right word describing you.
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Update from TFA:
Update 9/21/2023: Google says it has removed the AI-generated selfie from Knowledge Graph and Knowledge Panels, where it was appearing, after 404 Media reached out for comment and first published this story./quote
At Least It Is Machines Lying (Score:2)
Instead of humans. O wait.
By design (Score:2, Informative)
You don't think Peking actively spreads 1984-style disinformation even in western search results along the lines of:
"If the search results are fake, that reinforces that Tienanmen Square incident never happened."
Don't be fooled, Chinese citizens are being fooled - deliberately.
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That's not how vaccines work. At least short of herd immunity on a relatively stable disease. You might not get Polio if the majority of people get the vaccine, but a lot of people will get influenza even after getting a flu shot every year.
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Are they being fooled by this?
In China, searches for Tienanmen Square don't even mention tank man. Many younger Chinese have no idea that the event happened.
So, yes, Chinese citizens are being fooled, but not by this.
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> Many younger Chinese have no idea that the event happened
You have a reference for that?
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It is pretty clear nothing much happened in Tiananmen Square itself. It all happened a mile or two down the road, after most students and other (it wasn't just students) protesters had gone home.
However, I'd be interested if you have any evidence of authorities claiming it "never happened" as you suggest. IINM, the official report is something like a few hundred people died and a third of them were soldiers. I'd imagine it is difficult to be totally accurate, and the numbers are totally open to exaggeration
Wut. (Score:2)
Well, I tried it and I get the guy standing in front of a tank.
Finally a good use of AI: (Score:2)
...trolling Xi. Lovvit! Keepittup!
Nope. (Score:2)
This is actually good (Score:2)
Now consider AI images putting artists out of work. This is only going to snowball to other jobs. We need countries to start experimenting with socialism to see how it can help. That means the US must stop sanctioning every single country that supports socialism.
And why does Saudi Arabia always get a free pass? it is essentially socialist, its citizens supported by oil mone
Re:This is actually good (Score:5, Interesting)
the US must stop sanctioning every single country that supports socialism.
The US doesn't sanction countries for supporting socialism.
Here are the countries that America currently sanctions:
North Korea
Cuba
Iran
Syria
Venezuela
Russia
China
Only the first two are socialist.
North Korea is sanctioned because it is still in a technical state of war with America and is building nukes.
Cuba is sanctioned for internal political reasons because of the concentration of Cuban exiles in southern Florida.
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Can you mention a socialist country that is not sanctioned by the US?
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Can you mention a socialist country that is not sanctioned by the US?
No country's entirely a single political-economic system but Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Spain... Germany's quite socialist too.
AFAIK, the USA has labelled Venezuela's govt as "dangerous" because it's attempting a rather mild form of socialism. Well, that & because it's got a lot of oil & it won't kowtow to Washington.
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Mild? Have you paid attention [ohchr.org]? Hardly the USA alone [wikipedia.org] either.
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Venezuela is far more socialist than any European country with a rather extensive record of the government nationalizin
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"I know that some people in the US associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy." -- Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen
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The term these days is "democratic socialism," we have very different electoral systems compared to the USA (Perhaps more functional, fair, & open to collaboration & power-sharing?) and the following western European countries have the following parties sharing power to some degree within them:
Denmark:
Socialist People's Party
Red–Green Alliance
Estonia:
Eston
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Can you mention a socialist country that is not sanctioned by the US?
Portugal.
Unless of course, you're using the phrase 'socialist country' in the scare-mongering way that certain candidates for elective office do, in which case, of course we sanction them! They're bloody dictatorships mate.
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Can you mention a socialist country that is not sanctioned by the US?
Algeria, Eritrea, Laos, Nicaragua.
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We should do something about our socialized roads before the USA sanctions itself!
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Before photoshop this was done by hand. Most of the "tools" in classic Photoshop are direct copies of real-world tools used for physical photo manipulation - complete with an icon matching the physical tool. Dodge/burn, airbrushing, blur, cut and paste, etc.
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BTW, please get at least a rudimentary understanding of political economic systems before you come out with any more blinders like that one.
garbage in - garbage out (Score:2)
Actually, we feed AI models legitimate data and it still spits out garbage. Philosophically this is at odds with the purposes of computing.
But I got it off the Internet! (Score:1)
Remember when you could trust everything you got off the internet?
Next up? trying to figure out how to nicely disabuse your neighbor that the thing their facebook friend shared is also fake.
AI driving the Truth Tank. (Score:2)
"While the AI-generated selfie doesn't appear to be deliberate misinformation..."
Well thank goodness for that.
After all we wouldn't want to imply for AI to learn that there was ever any misinformation related to that particular incident. It might come up with some crazy-batshit idea...you know, like a selfie.
The "AI" factor in here is a red herring (Score:2)
Whether the image was a product of generative AI, or staged by a person in front of a tank, or photoshopped by a human, the implications, in this specific scenario are the same.
In terms of whether or not this is a 'big deal', well I don't see it and even if it happened, would need a picture in context. If it's the "usual" picture 20 times but this picture among them, then that's much to do about nothing. If it shoves the historically significant one out of the way in favor of some random obscure picture,
Like the AI used to generate TFS? (Score:2)
the platforms we use to surface information
To "surface" information????? I know the net and it's data is often compared to a large ocean of information, but come on......
And of course people WILL believe it. (Score:1)
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George Washington said if you see something on the interwebs, you MUST believe it
Washington never said that. The Internet was before his time. Abraham Lincoln however, he once said, "The problem with quotes on the Internet is it can be hard to verify their authenticity."