This may sound like an overstatement, but I think we’re at a critical tipping point in human history.
We are losing the ability to tell reality from fiction: any piece of digital media may now be fake.
I was wasting/enjoying a few minutes on Instagram recently, watching incredible videos of dogs saving toddlers from danger. After a few minutes I realized they were TOO incredible — all fake.
We’re now flooded with images and videos that are nearly indistinguishable from reality. It’s been building for months, but new text-to-video tools available to everyone (like Sora) have pushed it over the edge. Sure, AI videos still have the occasional giveaway (an extra finger here and there), but for how long?
It’s not just that misinformation is easy to create. It’s that we can no longer know if ANYTHING we see is real.
I don’t have anything wildly innovative to say about this yet. I just have questions:
– If we can’t trust anything we see, how do we know what’s real?
– What happens to the nature of truth and fiction? Can they ever be unblended again?
– How do we build or maintain trust when evidence can be faked?
– How does this change how we learn or attain knowledge?
– What does ‘authentic’ mean, when the unreal feels more real than reality?
– Are there any upsides? Maybe it breaks the spell videos have over us (especially Gen Z and younger)? If you know you’re being lied to, even for entertainment, is it still interesting to watch?
– Will there be a backlash, where people want to get together in person much more (since the only way you’ll know if you’re talking to someone is to be standing in front of them)?
As part of my work to understand gigatrends that shape the world, I’ll be watching this issue and commenting more. It impacts so much, including the pursuit of sustainability and climate action — the forces of disinformation have entirely new tools now.
In addition to everything else unsettling in the world, the ground of truth beneath our feet is crumbling. Let’s hope we find a way to find stability.
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One Response
After I read your piece, it hit me – everything photographed and filmed in the future needs to be done from two cameras at two different angles. I think that would be pretty hard to create with AI in a way that wasn’t easy to detect.