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Posted 11/18/2025

The way we interact with information has been changed by artificial intelligence - but not always for the better. In recent years, deepfakes and AI-generated misinformation have emerged, blurring the boundary between fact and fiction, while altering our willingness to trust what we see and hear online. A deepfake is a synthetic media (video, audio, or image) created using artificial intelligence and "deep learning" that convincingly mimics a real person... Click Here.

Once a harmless way to entertain, AI video synthesis allows anyone with a smartphone and software to create believable fakes, remove public officials from office, and ruin reputations overnight. Deepfake videos of political figures saying outlandish statements have circulated online before the fact checkers could even respond. Furthermore, AI can write in the style of a journalist or produce websites that appear like reputable news outlets and disseminate misinformation like never before.

Social media sites are ripe for deception. If, perhaps, the algorithms that drive social media sites favored engagement over truth, the possibility might exist for anger and amazement to circulate widely, long before the corrections come. This decline in trust of journalism, over the decades, has serious social consequences: when people no longer can trust their own eyes, democratic deliberation could suffer.

Experts suggest that media literacy and a technological response are part of the solution. AI can be used to detect AI - through water marking digital content or using block chains to assess truth.  However, technology will not sufficiently meet the challenge. People must learn the much more difficult task of questioning sources, fact-checking, and thinking critically about what they share.

The sad irony of the information age is that we have had access to the most information, and yet all of us realize that we are the most unsure of what is real. If left unchecked, misinformation or fake news, and deep fakes and doctored images, can disrupt the basic foundations of informed citizenship. Denmark is one of the first European nations to introduce legislation about deepfakes... Click Here.