Who You Going to Believe? AI Or Your Own Lying Eyes?

Cultures are based on paradigms. That is, generally agreed beliefs about man and God and the nature of reality. In oral cultures, a person’s word was sacred. Words had power. Oaths and verbal agreements were considered binding and this had a significant impact on how oral cultures operated and how knowledge was shared and passed down to the next generation. In a profound cultural paradigm shift, the invention of writing and later printing obsolesced the spoken word and replace oral agreements with written or printed contracts. It required you to “get it in writing” to make an agreement or business arrangement legal and binding. The spoken word became suspect and people ceased taken someone at his/her word because lying became a social skill, not a character flaw. 

 The paradigm shifted again when photography and later film and video gave us the ability to capture a “true” image of a thing or event. Sure, images could be altered and videos could be edited, but the raw footage was considered a kind of time binding “snapshot” of person and place. Media Ecologist note this bias shifted cultural discourse from discursive to presentational. As Neil Postman wrote “You can’t debate a photograph.” About the photographic image’s impact on politics, Postman continued 

“This is the lesson of all great television commercials: They provide a slogan, a symbol or a focus that creates for viewers a comprehensive and compelling image of themselves. In the shift from party politics to television politics, the same goal is sought. We are not permitted to know who is best at being President or Governor or Senator, but whose image is best in touching and soothing the deep reaches of our discontent” (1). 

 We now face a new paradigm shift brought about the image and sound generating capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI). What will be the impact of AI on photography and video when believable images can be created out of whole cloth? What aspects of our culture which have been photo or video dependent, like image politics, will be obsolesced? How will we trust what we see or hear with our own eyes and ears when AI is so good at lying?

(1) Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves To Death. P.  135