alt Hacker News> damage it will cause to the economy when you can no longer trust that you're on a video call with an actual person
What damage are you talking about?
I'm not sure I understand why it matters that there is no real person there if you can't actually tell the difference. You're just demonstrating that you don't actually need a human for whatever it is you're doing.
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Because what you are actually doing is exchanging symbols, tokens, if you will, that may be redeemed in a future meatspace rendezvous for a good or service (e.g. a job, a parcel). These tokens are handshakes, contracts, video calls, etc. to be exchanged for the actual things merely represented therein.
Instead what we have now with AI is people exchanging merely the tokens and being contented with the symbol in-and-of itself, as something valuable in its own right, with no need for an actual candidate or physical product underlying the symbol.
There is a clip by McLuhan I can't be assed to find right now where he says eventually people will stop deriving pleasure from the products themselves and instead derive the feelings of (projected) accomplishment and pleasure from viewing advertisements about the product. The product itself becomes obsolete, for all you actually need to evoke the desired response is the advertisement, or the symbol.
A hiring manager interviewing an AI and offering it a job is like buying the advertisement you just watched, and.... that's it. No more, the transaction is complete.
> What damage are you talking about?
Not GP, but there's a lot of damage that can be done with impersonation.
The grandparent post has the belief that human interaction is intrinsically better. Not sure i agree, but i can understand the POV.
However, the increase in fake videos that are difficult to tell from real is indeed a potential issue. But the fact that misinformation today is already so prevalent is evidence that better video doesn't make it any worse than it already is imho.
Imagine how this plays out in courtrooms the world over for evidence.
We're in deep shit.
Your wife or mother calls you or video calls you and says to meet her somewhere, or to send money, or to pick up groceries or whatever. Does it not matter that it wasn't her? Could it be someone trying to manipulate you into going somewhere, to be robbed or whatever? At any rate, you'll need to verify that information came from the source you trust before you act on it, and that verification has a cost.
The damage is to the trust we have in our communication media. The conclusion here is that every person is trivial to impersonate; that's the damage.