1. Once, a guilty pleasure of surfing the web and social media was seeing amusing videos of dogs and cats, and other animals too, behaving anthropomorphically, spectacularly, or adorably. Now, “thanks” to artificial intelligence, no such video can be trusted. The more remarkable it seems, the less trustworthy it is. Unethical people seeking views on Facebook and elsewhere post these fake videos as real, because viewers knowing they are staged and manufactured robs them of most, if not all, their entertainment value.
Above is a screen shot from one of the suddenly ubiquitous videos showing dogs frightening other dogs with Halloween masks. The link to the video, which WordPress wouldn’t let me embed, is here. It’s fake. Dogs, in my experience, are seldom fooled by masks. No dog would tolerate having a mask like that fastened to its head. No dog would go along with the gag and creep up on a sleeping canine companion. And no American Bully could leap like that all the way to the sofa.
2. Here’s another video, via Althouse, that could be fake, but I doubt it. Two guys are shown executing a daring stunt, with one standing on his head on top of the other guy’s head as he climbs a long set of steps.
My ethics concern here is the asshole who rushes down the steps completely ignoring the danger his action creates for the two acrobats. I’ve had it with the joggers, walkers and generally oblivious people who are totally unaware of their surroundings and the interests of others in public. A lot of this habitual inattention, I believe, is the result of cell phone addiction.
Yesteraday, once again, Spuds and I were startled by a jogger who ran up from behind us, saying nothing and making no discernible noise. My protective 70 pound pit bull mix whirled and missed taking a bite out him—as he should have—by about six inches, as I yanked the leash just in time. This fit jerk never said a word as he passed but I sure did. (Can you guess what I said? Hint: It was not, “What ho, young sir! Taking the air? Cheerio, my good man!”)
Were people always like that, rude and devoid of any care or courtesy to neighbors and members of the community? Maybe they were.
If only Spuds had his Halloween mask on….
Ethics Alarms 
As a general proposition, I think runners and bike riders deem themselves morally superior to walkers. For the most part, bike riders and runners won’t respond to a wave and a hello from me when I’m walking the neighborhood, which is particularly popular with serious bike riders, even bike riding clubs who go through en masse. But the most odd and apparently superior bike riders are the screwballs who ride recumbent bikes. They’ll stare right through you as they go past, low to the ground, their pennants blowing in the breeze high above them, which is evidently supposed to keep them from being run into by cars.
“No dog would tolerate having a mask like that fastened to its head.”
We have a picture of our late dog, Lucky, unhappy look on his face, struggling to side-eye the antlers we’d attached to his head ala the Grinch’s dog, Max. We got the picture and those antlers were quickly dispatched.
Dogs do not suffer adornments easily.
Responding to point 1, it is startling just how fast the quality of AI videos has improved. The fake pet videos are fairly easy to spot once you look for the clues, but my partner encountered a video of an expert giving a talk on Substack that people were flagging on the comments as fake but that seemed to him to be perfectly fine.
Digging into the issue he discovered a genuine video by the same expert giving a talk with the same background, which the AI video had copied, and apparently there was enough footage for the AI to be able to simulate the man’s voice and appearance and even the man’s mannerisms. The only red flag my partner was able to discover was that the analogue clock on the wall showed the same time throughout the fake talk.
Related, but only tangentially: I’ve given some thought to the idea that humans are becoming desensitized to entertainment. compare audience reactions to the first movies (and even any sorts of live entertainment) to how people respond to entertainment today. The entertainment we regularly see comes from people who devote their entire lives to perfecting their acts, which severely diminishes our ability to appreciate less devoted entertainers. As special effects have improved, so has this trend worsened. I think one of the big problems with superhero movie fatigue is that there’s nothing that hasn’t been seen before.
AI will only hasten this unfortunate trend, as we as a society seek greater stimulation as we grow numb, like drug addicts.
“we as a society seek greater stimulation as we grow numb, like drug addicts.”
Paul Revere and the Raiders saw that comin’ ding nigh six (6) decades ago:
PWS