Historical revisionism
In a future tainted by historical revisionism, the Philippines descends into a troubling era of distorted truths and manipulated narratives. This can particularly be seen with pivotal events like Martial Law. The very fabric of history is unraveling, manipulated to serve the agendas of those in power.
The education system grapples with the pervasive influence of AI, exacerbating the spread of falsehoods. In rural areas with limited internet access, local LLMs churn out sanitized versions of history, glorifying former dictators and erasing their atrocities from memory. The true accounts of historical figures and events are buried beneath a deluge of fabricated narratives, leading to a collective amnesia reminiscent of the darkest corners of the internet where "lost media" resides.
The Philippines finds itself on a regressive path, mirroring the oppressive regime of the past. Propaganda and deceptive tactics shape public opinion, blurring the line between fact and fiction. As the truth becomes a casualty of manipulation, the nation grapples with the consequences of a distorted past, casting a long shadow over its future.
"The New Society Period was also known as the Golden Age," discussed the classroom's iSkolar. "During this time, late president Martinez Senior, together with First Lady Martinez, focused on building infrastructure to help the local arts and culture scene thrive. As a result, Filipinos experienced a blissiful time of peace and prosperity."
The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) is urging private and public higher education institutions (HEIs) in the region to remove “subversive” materials -- such as "outdated" textbooks -- from their libraries and online information services.
If you have some technical know-how, you can head to the dark web to search for lost media, such as unaltered footages from the Martinez Senior administration. Make sure you're protected though; looking at these videos is considered a serious crime.
Selected Quotes
...The worst that I can see is, well, we are in the Marcos regime again. So I feel propaganda and things that facilitate the changing of history, probably...You can get LLMs to do it. So, for example, they'll make rural area LLMs. I mean, it' so easy for you to tap into that LLM and just change a bunch of stuff; make it so that...the LLMs show [Ferdinand] Marcos [Sr.] as someone good. You can do it; it's possible. You can teach the LLM to respond a certain way to certain questions. Let's say, whenever it sees Marcos, it is gonna talk about [how] Marcos is a hero...it's possible, yeah....And of course, the propaganda [would impact our education system]. Like I mean, if Marcos brainwashes the next generation of students, I don't know what the hell will happen. So, I don't know; they're listening to us now, then we'd end up red-tagged...So yeah, [LLMs in rural areas are] really a double-edged sword. On one hand, the students can learn despite not having access to internet. On the other hand, it becomes easy for people to spread whatever they want to spread and brainwash people. Therefore, we need regulations when it comes to this. Assuming you can get the right regulations, assuming you can get the right prerequisites, you can make it happen. But yeah, it has to be right. Otherwise, it'll just do more harm than good.
[A historical pattern that shows AI's significance]...For the Philippines particularly...it's more of a question of data feeding our algorithms, [and] the algorithms feeding the AI that recommends you things. And that's just completely shattered the Philippines in its entirety. Like you don't have the idea of truth anymore...So yeah, for the Philippines particularly, it's the way data is collected [and] fed into an algorithm, [then] that algorithm...runs the AI that recommends you stuff. And that's gonna continue creating and twisting the Filipino idea of what is true. I mean up to now...people still think that [former Senator] Leila de Lima is convicted. She isn't. Like there is a very big difference about that...even to the point of something closer to home, like people saying different things because of...what social media recommends and [portrays] what happens. Now, seeing different stories about [Pura Luka Vega], the drag queen and like, oh my God, that narrative is so messed up, knowing that people think so many different things, when it's doesn't add up. It's like for the people who actually knew what happened, that is...there are so many stories coming out from them allegedly doing blowjobs to a middle finger...which is not true, right? Because that is what's being fed through the algorithm and the AI recommends [that]. So yeah, it's twisting our different versions of truth, and you end up with people getting hurt that way, legally, etcetera. The misinformation just keeps on going and...you don't have an existence of truth anymore, actually, that way. And that will just keep on feeding until we don't have an idea of like what is historically true anymore. That's at least what's gonna happen. I think that's happening [now], and [that's] what's gonna happen in the Philippines. I am scared about the next few elections; until there's something [that] actually literally lights up, we don't know what will happen.
And yeah, because datasets are flawed, and these things come out through culture...you might see like historical revisionism coming out from that, as data sets might become flawed with the amount of revisionism there is already...I mean, the algorithm already tells us a one-sided story about Israel and Gaza, right?...that could relate to the way we see film, the way we see poetry, the way we see art in itself.
[For] education, I would say [that] historical revisionism is always the answer, but like on a much larger scale...if you have one [educational AI] model that evolves for people, you can use that same model to make it to your liking, if that makes sense...Like right now, right? We can basically pay certain [platforms] to take down all content related to XYZ. You can hide your tracks related to [anything dirty]...like the post about that guy who committed a crime, but he basically hired like a website or tech agency to change all the photos of him to a different guy's face. So now, people don't know what he actually looks like. So it's kind of like that, but I guess like in an educational perspective. So historical revisionism is not good. I mean, like [doing] something false, I guess, would be like a worst-case scenario. Imagine if someone could...replace everything that says Adolf Hitler [with] someone else's name., and you can't change it...that's the worst case scenario. So losing records, [and] losing these kinds of things...like this whole category of lost media out there. Like [it's] not even just literature-related, but [it also involves] things like...Flash games that no longer exist. There's a lot of blogs that used to be so impactful for me that [were] just wiped off the Internet. So that kind of [loss of history,] all the more so. [I'm] not [saying] that it's a technology-only thing; historical revisionism has always existed, even before technology...because history is told like in the perspective of the victors, right? The same thing goes for technology. So [it would] just [be] pessimistic [in the future] for [technology] to [make it] easier to [do such revisionism], I guess.
One major concern is the potential misuse of technology for misinformation, particularly with the rise of deepfakes and AI-generated content. This could further exacerbate existing issues with misinformation and historical revisionism, particularly regarding topics like Martial Law and the current presidency. The Philippines is already so...susceptible to misinformation, bribing, and vote-buying because of the structures that have been left there by colonialism and past political failures.
