With digital technology advancing at exponential rates and the current media landscape relying heavily on digital technology for information flow, the growing use of artificial intelligence to create fake news and false images puts the integrity of current news sourcing at a higher risk.
The ability to alter and manipulate video footage allows misinformation to spread through the deliberate misconstruction of a particular narrative or context. AI is becoming immensely difficult to detect as its highly realistic human depictions and movements showcase what appears to be very normal human interactions and behavior. The dangers in these practices are quite evident, and as AI seeps into our political landscape, the possibility of the blind leading the blind grows higher and higher by the day.
While we cannot say that we are completely secure with our level of trust in the American government, we can say that we should hold some confidence in our government to identify clear misinformation and fake news. A major source of American news comes from within the political gates of the country, and it is their job—along with many other journalists, reporters, and media officials—to fact check and filter through information to ensure that it is valid and comes from a credible and reputable source. This serves as a gatekeeping method to prevent false narratives from bleeding into our news outlets, blogs, and social media pages.
Well it looks like the Republican Party let us down after mistaking an AI-generated photo of a rescued airman smiling with a military crew holding a U.S. flag. A supporter of President Trump posted the video in celebratory fashion. The photo gained immense traction as it received at least 21,000 shares even after being debunked as fake. Republican figures were exposed and slightly ridiculed for liking the fake image on social media. Texas governor, Greg Abbott, and New York representative, Mike Lawler, were only some of the names that were caught in the list of likes under the post, according to The Guardian.
As AI is being embedded into our culture through social media, the distinction between reality and illusion continues to be muddy and gray. Many high-profile citizens can get depicted in ways that can absolutely destroy their reputation—and it is for this reason that this mistake cannot be considered irredeemable. However, situations like these expose the dangers of AI as facts are no longer a primary source of news information. With artificial intelligence being highly accessible to the public, anyone can alter a video to completely change the context of a given scenario and misconstrue someone’s words and intentions—and this sort of mix-up showcases the severity of how deeply embedded AI is into our culture. This controversy poses significant concerns moving forward when taking a look at the credibility of our news sources.
