Mandela effect

mar21

Basically, it’s relatively easy to implant false memories. Getting rid of them is the hard part. The study was conducted on 52 subjects who agreed to allow the researchers to attempt to plant a false childhood memory in their minds over several sessions. After awhile, many of the subjects began to believe the false memories. The researchers then asked the subjects’ parents to claim the false stories were true. The researchers discovered that the addition of a trusted person made it easier to both embed and remove false memories. Per the paper: "The present study therefore not only replicates and extends previous demonstrations of false memories but, crucially, documents their reversibility after the fact: Employing two ecologically valid strategies, we show that rich but false autobiographical memories can mostly be undone. Importantly, reversal was specific to false memories (i.e., did not occur for true memories)."

What does this have to do with Deepfakes? It’s simple: if we’re so easily manipulated through tidbits of exposure to tiny little ads in our Facebook feed, imagine what could happen if advertisers started hijacking the personas and visages of people we trust? If you can convince someone that the people they respect and care about believe they’ve done something wrong, it’s easier for them to accept it as a fact. How many law enforcement agencies in the world currently have an explicit policy against using manipulated media in the solicitation of a confession? Our guess would be: close to zero. With Deepfakes and enough time, you could convince someone of just about anything as long as you can figure out a way to get them to watch your videos. 

https://thenextweb.com/neural/2021/03/23/how-deepfakes-could-help-implant-false-memories-in-our-minds/

 

 Consider, for example, the well-known Mandela effect, the unexplained phenomenon of broadly shared false memories, named after its most famous iteration, that South African politician Nelson Mandela died in jail, a "fact" many people would swear by. These false memories are so entrenched that there is a large segment of the population that would rather believe in a supernatural alteration of the time-space continuum than the possibility that they are misremembering. LINK