When I was a teen, I was able to land a temporary summer job helping conduct a community survey about where to locate a new city park. Mixed with the relevant responses I was able to collect were some homeowners slamming the door in my face or using my visit to complain about things that had nothing to do with the survey.
But one house call stands apart from the others, a response I didn’t understand as a teen but resonates with me today.
An old lady shuffled to the door after I knocked, peering through the screen door as I made my pitch. I had a prepared script that I followed that explained who I was, what I was doing and what information I was seeking, ending with some possible sites for the park.
When I finished, she paused for a while then said, “I don’t know. I’m old.”
It took 50 years for me to understand the universal truth of the old lady who was peering through her screen door.
There are people I know who are in their 80s, who are still fully engaged with the world around them. Their intellect remains sharp, their instincts still reliable.
For most of us who live long lives, I think at some point we’re going to end up like that old lady. “We don’t know. We’re old.”
The technological world seems to hurtle past us so fast we’re often not aware of the changes. The younger you are, the more likely it is that you recognize, adapt to and master those changes.
The older folks never see it coming, don’t know what it means and have no idea how to use it or why they should even care.
That makes them vulnerable.
For many older folks, the emergence of social media has made them extremely vulnerable to online scams and manipulations.
Scams and financial abuse targeting older adults are common and vastly under-reported.
Psychology Today studies show the vulnerability to those scams stems from social, emotional and cognitive problems. They are often isolated, either by living alone or by a lack of regular interaction outside the home. The cognitive decline that accompanies aging makes it hard to recognize scams.
It’s going to get worse, I’m afraid. As artificial intelligence continues to become more sophisticated, it can be used as a tool to deceive in ways we could never have imagined. Not only can AI create a realistic image of people, places and things that do not exist, the emergence of AI video and sound can make a “deepfake” that is almost impossible to detect.
Actor Morgan Freeman is currently threatening legal action over the unauthorized use of his voice by AI cloning technology, calling the practice a form of “robbery.” It’s no trivial matter for Freeman, whose rich, resonant vote is widely sought by advertisers.
On Monday, a federal jury in Florida awarded $75,000 in damages to rapper Megan Thee Stallion in her suit against online influencer Millagro Cooper, ruling that the rapper’s reputation was damaged after a deepfake porn video was shared across the internet.
Just around the corner are the midterm elections and you can bet AI will be a huge tool for PACs to attack opponents or glorify their preferred candidates. We’ll see candidates drawing puppies or walking on water.
There used to be a saying, “Who are you going to trust? Me or your lying eyes?” What was once a joke is disturbingly accurate as AI advances. We can’t trust what we see or what we hear.
It’s the wild west days of AI.
Fortunately, some reliable software tools have been developed to expose fraudulent AI images. Software that can effectively identify deepfake videos has yet to be developed, though.
This is especially troubling for older people for whom online technology remains a strange new world. While some older people are tech-savvy, many others know only the most rudimentary uses of the technology. If there are tools to detect AI frauds in all their manifestations, it’s a good bet that many seniors won’t be aware of them, know where to find them or be particularly motivated to use them.
Because eventually, many of us will give up and say, “I don’t know. I’m old.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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