Closing Arguments#
Week 12#
What we actually covered#
- text, image, video, audio — four kinds of artefact, four sets of tells
- watermarking and provenance — signals designed in, not inferred after
- the arms race — why any single signal degrades under pressure
- workslop, policy, and the ethics of getting an accusation wrong
No single method here was ever sufficient alone.#
That’s not a disappointing conclusion#
- textual tells decay the moment they’re published
- watermarks get stripped by ordinary handling, let alone a hostile one
- provenance standards only cover what was signed in the first place
- detectors get gamed exactly in proportion to how much weight rests on them
What holds up is the practice underneath all four: treat a claim as a case.
The actual throughline#
Frankfurt → Calling Bullshit → AI Snake Oil → this course. Same discipline, aimed at a faster adversary each time. It will need re-aiming again next year, at whatever comes after generative slop. That’s not a flaw in the method.
Never let the accusation outrun the proof.
Further reading#
Where this discipline keeps going, after this course ends
Final case presentations#
Five minutes each. What you found, how sure you are, and what would change your mind.