In a series of recent posts, the former US President claimed that images from a recent rally for VP Harris that showed huge crowds were “A.I.’d”. They weren’t.

We won’t get into the political implications of one candidate accusing another of faking images from their campaign; instead I want to focus on what this era of AI means for content in general.

Not long ago there was a common phrase used on message boards and social media any time someone made an outrageous claim: “pics or it didn’t happen.” The implication was that photo evidence was the only way to truly believe what someone was saying.

Today, that trust is broken.

Whether or not AI-generated images are actually good enough to mimic reality is irrelevant, what matters is that we believe the content we’re seeing online could be faked.

That skepticism will allow everyone to construct their own narrative about what is and isn’t true, but it’s not exactly their fault. When the internet is filled with content that is actively trying to deceive, mislead, or outright lie to us, then of course we are going to question everything that we see in our newsfeeds.

Imagine a scenario where controversial sports outcomes are questioned because we don’t believe that the replay clips are authentic, or we question a major news story because we don’t know if the images we’re seeing may have been manipulated.

For years the internet has been littered with people who cherry-pick studies, quotes, and clips to construct their own beliefs about what is going on in the world, which has created — as one political figure famously claimed — “alternative facts.”

Now, the possibility that anything we see with our own eyes may be deceiving us creates an entirely new reality that is no longer anchored in any sort of common agreement about what may, or may not, have taken place.

To see some of the hyper-realistic content that has been coming out recently, check out this post from @metav3rse on Instagram.

So What?

While the implications for this shift don’t have the same type of direct application to our work that an Instagram update or a change to Google’s algorithm might, I believe it’s important that we all have a clear understanding of the online environment we’re operating in.

From this point forward, brand images and even videos will be looked at with even more disbelief. Perhaps even more importantly, the people who are consuming our content will each be living within their own self-curated universe that consists only of the facts, events, and understanding that they have chosen to allow into their worlds.

AI creates a nearly infinite amount of creative possibilities and opportunities for us to communicate with people, but that freedom also comes at a cost, which is the loss of a common understanding of what’s real.

There’s an old quote that said you should never trust a radio ventriloquist or a TV magician. Perhaps that needs an update to include an internet content creator.