Deepfake Survival Guide, Part II: Mindset Strategies
Deepfake Survival Guide, Part II: Mindset Strategies
Welcome to the second part of my “Deepfake Survival Guide”! In this article, we’ll be looking at mindset tools you can use to navigate misinformation.
I’m excited for the capabilities that AI gives us, and I love writing about how we can integrate it.
At the same time, AI is going to bring with it a host of difficulties, the top two of which I expect will be job force disruption, and misinformation - either through misleading news stories, and/or deepfake images.
So in this series, I’m looking at ways to navigate this sea of WTF that’s coming our way.
Last week, I posted about emotional resilience - strategies to use to navigate the emotions around deepfakes and misinformation. I started with emotional resilience because, quite frankly, it’s hard to use any other strategies when you’re freaking out.
I highly recommend practicing those when you’re calm, it’ll help you remember to try them when you’re upset.
This week, I’ll be diving into 6 mindset strategies to help go deeper.
Let’s go get ‘em.
Mindset Strategies
1. Notice Your Belief
“When you encounter content you’re not sure about …”
Yeah, so, about that.
You may not feel unsure about content as often as you used to. The reason this stuff is going to spread is because it’s easy to create and it’s convincing. Fake content that’s effective is going to seem real.
Which means, you’re likely to believe it.
This sets you up resist discovering whether it’s fake, because it can feel hurtful to be wrong.
So if you start by just noticing that you believe the content, this helps you step back from the ownership of that belief. “Hey, I’m noticing that I believe this content is real,” sounds longwinded and maybe silly.
But it helps you disconnect, and will make it easier to feel flexible as you look to see what’s really going on.
2. Notice Your Feelings
This one is a bit of a crossover, and could also be thought of as an emotional tactic - but for now, I’m referring to this primarily as a mental exercise.
With practice, noticing your feelings (and practicing the emotional resilience strategies) helps you step back from how you’re feeling and notice them more than be in them.
Why this matters: when you can notice your feelings from outside the experience of them, you can see what hints they’re giving you.
For example:
“I’m so pissed!” In that moment, you’re inside the feeling. That’s when you need strategies from the first part of this guide (or ones of your own).
“Wow, I’m noticing that I’m feeling pretty pissed.” In that moment, you’re stepping back from it. Typically, it’s easier to analyze at this point and move forward:
“Why am I pissed? What makes this so infuriating?”
If it’s the event itself, then you may need to check other sources you already trust, to see if they’re reporting on the same event. You’re checking with them because you trust them to have already done the legwork to uncover whether the content is real.
If it’s the writing style (using clickbait language: emotionally triggering language, “hooks” that make you feel like you have to read more, etc), then you can start asking yourself if you’re looking at clickbait. This might be a point to start to evaluate the source of the content, and not the content itself.
This can also be true of stuff that makes you feel strong positive feelings, as well. Are you feeling like the content is “a big win for your side”? Are you noticing that you feel vindication or validation? Check other sources, check the style of the writing. This one can be tricky, because it might mean you start to question one of your own trusted sources.
Not everything is going to be emotionless, and not everything needs to be emotionless to be accurate or valuable. (I, for one, don’t strive for a journalistic neutral style of writing, but I do strive to be accurate.) The point with this piece isn’t to achieve honorary robot status - it’s to be aware of what you’re looking at.
3. Embrace Skepticism Without Cynicism
These two overlap often (some definitions have them as synonyms). But they’re not the same:
Skepticism: an attitude of doubt; a feeling or attitude that one does not know the truth, truthfulness, or trustworthiness of someone or something (MW)
Cynical: contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives (MW)
It’s okay to doubt content. And a healthy way to do that is to do so without letting it turn into a general distrust of humankind.
“I wonder if this is real?” vs “I bet this is fake, those trolls are always doing this.”
The next little bit of forever will feel easier if you can embrace the skepticism, and release the cynicism.
If you feel the cynicism coming on, it might be a great time to step back and engage with something that helps you feel good things about other people.
4. Wait
Wait before you react.
Wait before you share content.
Wait for verification from other sources who have more time than you do to this kind of thing.
This isn’t about patience - I don’t believe in patience, because I don’t believe it exists without impatience. When we’re content and boppin’ through our day, no one says “Wow, I feel so patient!” Patience is a response to trying to manage an impatient feeling. And usually that impatience is an indicator that we need to take some other kind of action, or process some other kind of feeling. So if impatience is your response to content, check in with what else needs to be addressed.
This is about waiting as a tactic.
Do something else, decide to wait to do - whatever this content makes you want to do, whether it’s share or take action, until you have more information.
You might not be waiting long, or you might find it drifts off into nothing.
5. Focus On The Broader Context
Watch for misdirection. Is there other news or content coming out that this might be distracting from? Check other sources.
The “mindset” strategy here is to keep the larger context of an issue in mind.
Note: focusing on the bigger picture can sometimes lead you to uncover to more misinformation. To avoid this, make sure to implement other techniques at the same time, such as watching for inflammatory language or other manipulation strategies."
6. Check Your Responsibility
Remind yourself that you aren’t solely responsible for solving the problem of deepfakes.
Okay that one might sound ridiculous, because of course you’re not responsible for solving the problem alone.
But after consuming a lot of content on the topic, your mind might subconsciously feel responsible for solving the problem.
So remind yourself that there are people out there working on this. For example, Geoffrey Hinton, “Godfather of AI” left his job at Google because he’s concerned about AI safety. He didn’t leave because he’s afraid of what Google is doing (he stated “Google has acted very responsibly” in a recent tweet). He’s leaving so that he can have a louder voice outside of the Google umbrella.
We’re going to see more efforts put toward misinformation management, and more people interested in working on this problem together.
🤖 That’s all I’ve got for now, I hope this has been helpful.
The final installment, where I’ll look at some technical strategies, is coming out soon! This will look at some concepts as well as some simple tools. Spoiler alert: there’s no “deepfake detectors” at the moment that are reliable. We’ll look at some other techniques.
See you next time! 💜🔮🧙
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