Reality is losing the deepfake war
TL;DR
The Verge discusses the reality crisis: AI-generated and manipulated photos/videos make it increasingly hard to tell real from fake.
Key Points
- Even smartphone photos are now heavily AI-processed – the line between 'real' and 'generated' has been blurring for years.
- Standards like C2PA attempt to label media, but the question remains: can technical labels still protect our shared understanding of reality?
Nauti's Take
The „war on reality” is no longer a future scenario – we're in the thick of it. While C2PA and similar standards try to put the genie back in the bottle, they're chasing a problem that's already escalated.
Every iPhone today does computational photography; every TikTok app has filters that alter faces. The question is no longer whether we see manipulated images, but: how much manipulation do we accept before we completely lose our footing?
Labels are a band-aid, but the wound runs deeper. Maybe we need not just better tech, but a new media literacy – or else „trust” becomes a luxury good.