Personal computers have made image editing relatively cheap, easy, and largely accessible to everyone, professionals and amateurs. Thus, there are valid guidelines in the matter of image editing, widely spread and easily findable on the web, that I’m going to briefly summarize below. Recently, artificial intelligence has become rather popular, and has raised huge expectations, so that there evidently are new ethical concerns. However, no one is openly affirming that the “new” concerns are exactly the same. In effect, while ethical aspects have been validly faced and solved in the matter of image editing, I haven’t still read anything equally valid in the matter of artificial intelligence. In my opinion, the described situation is paradoxical, because there’s no logical reason to distinguish the two topics. Nevertheless, the political relevance of artificial intelligence is far superior to the one of image editing. Philosophically speaking, artificial intelligence is felt as a tool for reinforcing traditional political dreams, in the fields of internationalism, and of an illusion of unlimited capacities of human brain. Economically speaking, giving more importance to the digital world implies a further valorization of the monopoly of China over rare earths elements. You know, political visions have always represented the major source of cultural distortions, and I want to be one of the rare persons to underline the comeback of that about artificial intelligence.
The starting point is the following summary of the guidelines of image editing: respect for humans and their rights; maintenance of authenticity; observance of copyright laws, and of other appliable norms. Now, some of my readers can imagine the, illogical but strong, reasons why the reported guidelines are normally not applied to artificial intelligence. First, in China the respect for humans and their rights is at a low level. Second, leftist ideologies refuse authenticity, and promote deep social changes. Third, dictatorships and oligarchic regimes tend to annihilate personal rights such as moral authorship of fruits of individual intelligence. In brief, political correctness is responsible for treating differently two similar topics. Despite, I’m sure that the fairness and the social sustainability of artificial intelligence depend on respecting individuals, maintaining authenticity, and observing copyright laws.
I’ve seen that there are many dreamers, who are dreaming a better world, based on digitalization. The new world is totalitarian, perfectly ordered and ruled, allegedly immune from alienation and dissatisfaction, with other words “rather Orwellian”. On the other hand, the traditional, old world seems to reject any order and any global rule, and seems founded on lies and deception. Is anybody conscious that the battle between virtual and real is merely fictional? The source of any kind of sovereignty is always fictional. The fiction can be conscious and accepted, and becomes like a social contract, or unaware, and consists of the biggest lies and the deepest deception. In conclusion, human societies are large fictions, in which there’s a stratification of different levels of falsification, and where ethics can never be guaranteed.
Coming to music, the mash-up of the page is dedicated to the lies that can fill any photo. You have the following choices: convincing yourself that falsity is your truth; trusting the part of falsity that can be useful to you; searching for the one and only truth, at the price of remaining alone; understanding that your conscience has the monopoly of ethics, while your shoulders can bear a small weight.
File name “Depeche Mode & Nightcrawlers Vs Max Look DJ – photographic lies (end of Apr 2025)”, length 5’, rhythm at 121,7 BPM, contains samples of the Depeche Mode – photographic, and of the Nightcrawlers – push the feeling on.
