The Hypnotic Gaze – Artificial Intelligence’s War on Reality

Today, millions of people are watching artificially generated videos without realizing it. And this isn’t just the average Facebook user. Recently, senator Dick Durbin, on the floor of the U.S. Senate, used an the AI generated photo of the Alex Pretti shooting, claiming it was real. The fake image was not flagged by Durbin or any of his staff. This shines a spotlight on a clear and present danger.

Often, when someone like me urges caution when a video comes out, this George Orwell quote gets thrown back at me:

The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

If I urge caution about taking a stand based on a video or video segment, the accusation is that I am letting the State dictate what I consider to be true and not true. Lest I be unfair, it works both ways. Some people are immediately dismissing all video that goes contrary to their views as generated by Artificial Intelligence. It is a significant problem.

In this article, I want to respond specifically to the use of Orwell’s quote, and sketch an outline for a biblical standard of the burden of proof.

First, Orwell’s quote. Let’s begin by quoting it in its entirety.

He picked up the children’s history book and looked at the portrait of Big Brother which formed its frontispiece. The hypnotic eyes gazed into his own. It was as though some huge force were pressing down upon you — something that penetrated inside your skull, battering against your brain, frightening you out of your beliefs, persuading you, almost, to deny the evidence of your senses. In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable what then?

But no! His courage seemed suddenly to stiffen of its own accord. The face of O’Brien, not called up by any obvious association, had floated into his mind. He knew, with more certainty than before, that O’Brien was on his side. He was writing the diary for O’Brien — to O’Brien: it was like an interminable letter which no one would ever read, but which was addressed to a particular person and took its colour from that fact.

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right. The obvious, the silly, and the true had got to be defended. Truisms are true, hold on to that! The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall towards the earth’s centre. With the feeling that he was speaking to O’Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important axiom, he wrote:

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.

In Orwell’s 1984, he is warning that the totalitarian regime warps your perception of reality. It does this through various means, including screens (“telescreens” that look at people as much as people look at them). His point is not that we should trust all that we see through means easily manipulated. “The solid world exists,” there is such a thing as objective truth, and that objective truth can be attained to. The party has power only insofar as they can manipulate the world that Winston (the protagonist of 1984) can perceive and believe.

Orwell’s quote means exactly the opposite of what some are using it to mean. Video is extremely easy to manipulate, and it becomes easier by the day. It would be valuable to review this video created five years ago, making this point:

We are being lied to… constantly. The very nature of video limits perspective.

So then, second, in our increasingly deceptive world, what standard of evidence should we adopt? What is the biblical “burden of proof” standard we should apply?

For this, we need to go back before AI. I would like to quote a section from an article by Founder’s Ministries, titled Justice in Society, authored by Tom Hicks, written in 2018, in its entirety…

The Need for Sufficient Evidence of Injustice

Biblical justice requires more than allegations of lawlessness from one person. It requires more than a feeling or sense that an injustice has taken place. One person’s allegation of injustice is indeed evidence, but it is insufficient evidence by itself. Justice requires that all allegations be corroborated, examined against the known facts, and evaluated for consistency, because human beings are sinful, and they lie (Rom 1:29).

Scripture teaches that there must be two or three consistent witnesses of any given instance of sin, never just one witness (Deut 19:15; Matt 18:15-16; Jn 8:17-18). Of course, when the Bible speaks of multiple witnesses, it certainly means to accept any other clear proof or evidence of sin. Pictures, recordings, emails, forensic evidence, etc., are all strong witnesses in their own right. Any sort of evidence should be accepted as a witness to prove an injustice.

But the Scripture also warns against accepting only one human witness (Num 35:30), inconsistent testimonies (Mk 14:55-59), false witnesses (Gen 29:12-14; Ps 35:11; Matt 26:59), as well as hearsay, speculations and opinions (Job 32:3).

In short, true biblical justice in society requires sufficient evidence of alleged violations of God’s law. This standard requires that all allegations be heard and investigated, but it also requires the presumption of innocence until there is sufficient evidence to prove otherwise.

It is important to recognize that this was a good theological baseline in 2018 for weighing up evidence. Since then, ground has shifted seismically. The biblical standards have not. Here are three categories we MUST remember to hold to whenever we see a video on the internet:

• First, the Bible assumes innocence until proven guilty (Deuteronomy 17:4; 1 Timothy 5:19).

• Second, multiple human witnesses are often required (Deuteronomy 19:15; 2 Corinthians 13:1).

• Third, the Bible requires careful investigation (Proverbs 18:17; Deuteronomy 13:14, 17:4, 19:18; John 7:24).

Here are a few conclusions to consider when it comes to how we should interact with our ever increasingly artificially generated video feeds:

• You cannot see a video and assume guilt.

• Human witnesses should not be dismissed, or outweighed by our digital perceptions based on audio/visual over a screen.

• Witnesses should be actively sought out for purported events we see on screens.

• Investigation should be encouraged and required.

As Christians, we should not feel required to accept the validity of what is reported to us, or what we see online. When a horrific event happens, we should not jump to assuming one side of the event, and we should not become emotionally invested in what may be completely falsified. We must assume that all the videos we see on the internet are biased towards one perspective – the perspective of the camera lens – and we should react accordingly.

Don’t trust the lying eye of the camera lens. It is the hypnotic gaze – an artificial reality overlaid on to actual reality staring back at you.

For more on this theme of technology, click here.