Remember 2022, the golden era of the internet? Back then, a reel popped up on my Instagram feed. Security footage captures a man sitting on a Target-ball in front of a store. Target-ball? You know what I mean, those large red concrete balls spaced in front of Target’s glass entryway. They make smash-and-grab rammings nearly impossible. In the footage, an out-of-control car slams into the ball next to where the man sits. The ball caroms into the ball beneath the man, knocks it away like a billiard ball, and the new ball stops directly under the man’s butt. One ball replaced the other. The man barely reacts. He probably doesn’t even know he’s sitting on a new ball yet.
“Whoa!” I watch it again and again. I can’t see any evidence that it’s fake. Convinced, I share it with my family. Real life is better than fiction. I love stuff like this. Loved! In 2022, I could watch it all day. That’s in the past now. Today, anything unbelievable is assumed to be AI.
Last week, I saw a video on Facebook. A grizzly draped itself over a car. It inadvertently pushed the car down the road as it tried to find a good angle to lick spilled food off the car hood. Realistic? Horns blared, the bear huffed, the car beneath the bear struggled under the added weight. Even the camera angle looked believable, as if the photographer tried to keep an extra car between themselves and the bear. Everything appears legit, but the bear is too big, even for a grizzly. It’s as big as the car.
I’ve seen a grizzly up close. The Cabela’s Sporting Goods in Hamburg, Pennsylvania has a taxidermized grizzly standing upright in their store. When my kids were young, we often stopped there for bathroom breaks as we drove to visit their grandparents. Cabela’s had the grizzly, a couple of elk and several huge aquariums filled with lake trout. It’s a nice break after a few hours in the car. The grizzly is massive. It’s unbelievable, frightening, awe inspiring, but it’s not as big as a car. Probably.
Here’s the thing. Maybe the grizzly video could be authentic. Maybe grizzlies actually grow that big. What do I know. I’m a city-guy from Washington, DC. But it no longer matters. I can’t tell the difference between real and fake. And if it isn’t real, what’s the point. The video isn’t exciting if Google Veo 3 thought it up. It’s impressive that AI has advanced so far since Chat GPT’s splashy release a couple of years ago, but it has ruined the magic of the unbelievable. It put an end to wonder.
Yesterday, the New York Times published a test. They posted ten short videos. Readers watched the videos and then guessed whether the content was genuine or AI generated. I got seven out of ten correct, but not because I could spot AI, the videos all looked real to me. I just used basic psychology. The more outlandish the video seemed, the less likely I was to call it AI. The most mundane videos, a guy livestreaming as he walked down a dirt road, two news anchors introducing themselves, those were fake. A whimsical clip of a model releasing balloons into the sky while flapping birds surround her, that one is real.
This is my question, my fear. Will I ever be stunned by a photograph again? A list of some of the greatest, most recognizable photos in history: Charles Ebbets – Lunch atop a Skyscraper; Nick Ut – Napalm Girl*; Alfred Eisenstaedt – V-J Day in Times Square; Steve McCurry – Afghan Girl. The next time a world-changing photograph is published, will we even know if it’s real? Will an artist capture a unique and beautiful (or terrible) moment in time, or will a clever app simply generate something sure to stir those idiotic humans who keep the electricity running.
As if to put an exclamation point on this thought, just before bed last night, I saw a tornado reel on Facebook. Tornados fascinate me. The raw, focused power makes the ‘finger of God’ analogy I’ve heard since childhood the most appropriate descriptor. The tornado in this video was a monster, ever approaching the camera as it tore a swath across the barren countryside. It’s exactly the sort of video I would watch repeatedly, mesmerized by the awful beauty of nature. Instead, I gave my head a quick shake swiped to watch Anatoly prank another room full of muscleheads. Hmmm, I wonder if that one was real. It’s much easier to create these videos on a computer than find a group of weightlifters who haven’t heard of Anatoly.
*The attribution of Napalm Girl is currently in dispute. World Press Photo has determined that it’s possible Nick Ut, did not shoot the photo. “’Visual and technical’ evidence ‘leans toward’ an emerging theory that a Vietnamese freelance photographer, Nguyen Thanh Nghe, took the photo.”
Image: Screenshot captured from Facebook
The Other Stuff 
Jesse Fallis
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? Who’s that?
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AI just confirmed my memory that the famous Iwo Jima flag-raising photo (by Joe Rosenthal, WWII) was re-posed with a larger flag for photographic effect.
But you have got a point.
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Yes, that Iwo Jima photo was on the page of the ‘most impactful photos in history’ (the Americanized version). When I saw it, I was surprised because I recall it being staged as well. As an interesting side note. Susan’s first apartment in the DC area had the Iwo Jima statue modeled off of that photo pretty much right in her front yard.
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Not everyone would like that, but I’d have enjoyed those statutes, and thought about things…
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What’s scary for me are all the politically focused memes with photos that might or might not be real. Might just be someone playing with AI. Memes or news stories making claims that may or may not be true. It’s like we’re living in a perpetual fog now.
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Yes, I honestly think we, as a society, are losing track of the truth. Politicians lie to us, and now they have video to back up their lies.
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I can’t watch videos or reels. I don’t know why, I just can’t do it, something about a preference to read or see a photo. (Somebody else pointed out “I can read so much faster than I can watch this video!”) Now this knowledge that some videos are fake makes me even less willing to watch anything.
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As far as the reels go, IM would be happy if I stopped watching them. I waste plenty of time on them. Have you seen the Anatoly reels? They are pretty funny the first few you watch, but it’s the same thing over and over.
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Is that the one where a supposed janitor shows up the strong gym guys? One of my clients thinks those are so funny! He describes them so I don’t have to watch them lol
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Yes, that’s the one. Of course they are all exactly the same, so if you’ve seen one or two, you’ve seen them all. And of course, they might not even be real 😢
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We are in a time of turmoil and doubt and fear Jeff for sure.
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You got that right. The news has my head spinning every day. Calling AI a problem might just be a distraction for the real issues we face.
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I didn’t believe the size of that bear, even before I read your post.
As for attribution, I guess the words, Pulitzer Prize, can get in the way of any personal moral compass. Sad.
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The news story I heard about it led me to believe that the rolls of film all wound up in a bin together and attribution was determined at the time by where photographers were standing as they shot photos. There seem to be a lot of supporters and detractors on both sides of the issue. If there was a mistake, it probably was an honest one.
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I had to start watching funny pet videos or DIY stuff just to get away from the noise.
The news is frustrating and depressing.
Unfortunately AI is here to stay. I wonder if Alexa or Siri will replace the voice of HAL9000🤔
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AI will definitely change how I interact with media (and I’m sure others will feel the same way). If *all* evidence is suspect of fraud, how do you make informed decisions. I didn’t realize that this aspect of AI was going to be such a big deal, but “deep fakes” seem like they will disrupt everything. Alexa is creepy. She blurts out crap all the time thinking we’re talking to her. Someone is always saying shut up Alexa.
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I know there are benefits to AI, such as in medical advancements, but I am not a fan of AI, especially in the creative world. I read once that AI doesn’t replace a person’s creativity but rather “enhances” it. I don’t believe that. I am more on the side that things like books, poems, or videos should be created by a human. I feel a computer (AI) can only mimic the human touch but never actually fully recreate or replace it. AI is not human, after all. But you are right, it is tough these days to know what is real and not real. Maybe it should be required to have disclaimers on creative endeavors, such as “created by a human” or “created by AI.”
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I know there is discussion on legislation to have AI flagged with a watermark, but I doubt it will happen. 3rd party apps will always be available to erase those.
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The AI struggle is real. It’s getting so good, so quickly. It’s seems only moments ago that it was all six-fingered humans and limbs that bent badly – because it was, but now, often the only thing that saves me from believing in everything is a small bit of knowledge regarding physics. The loss of beauty in “real” art and photography worries me, but the loss of our ability to distinguish real from fake, and fact from fiction, is terrifying. The enjoyment of viewing is tarnished as well – I’m often now scanning for “tells” rather than simply enjoying.
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I think I made that switch to scanning for tells right after I wrote this article. This will probably be the end of facebook for me. My only remaining social will be wordpress. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life trying to discern fact from BS.
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Agreed. Plus, I’m a little bit gullible. I’m like Mulder – I want to believe.
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