What’s Real vs. What’s Unreal – Media and AI

March 30, 2025 Keith

It has been said that the greatest contemporary threat to humanity is this new thing called Artificial Intelligence (popularly known as AI). The voices calling out these warnings are talking about the existential crisis of AI having access to military weaponry and deciding that humanity is no longer needed or wanted. And while that is definitely something that the big minds of the world are addressing, there is a much more immediate item to discuss regarding AI.

Unbeknownst to many who spend time on social media and news outlets, AI is being used by people for two purposes that are being employed to unfairly influence the audience (us) into believing things that are simply not true. The advancement of photo editing, video editing, and digital voices have come to a level where someone with intermediate skills can create these types of media and portray imagery and sound to go along with any narrative, whether true or not.

It often happens that a friend or family member will forward me something that they are posing as true, when in fact it is simply someone’s fake facts presented with AI-created photos or videos. Currently, there are NO LAWS preventing the spreading of misinformation with the powerful use of AI. This means that anyone can say anything “with proof” being a sound clip, an image, or a video.

Ultimately, ALL MEDIA MUST BE CONSIDERED FALSE unless it can be verified as real. We all have our media outlets that we trust, but truly, the only way to really know if something is real or not is by first-hand eye-witnessing the event. Consider the following:

Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth. Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister, famously used the tactic of repeating a lie so often that it would become widely accepted as truth, a strategy known as the “big lie” technique.
Many AI generators only need a few seconds of a person’s voice to create a decent replica of a specific person having a conversation. Though most agree that to create a near-perfect replication of someone’s voice, a few-minute audio sample which includes tone and inflection is needed. Most of the false audio media being propagated is relatively simple to make.
Convincing AI video generators are now free apps that can be downloaded and used on an iPhone or Android smartphone.
The alteration of images, commonly known as “photoshopping” something has been around for years. Back then it was doctoring an existing photo. Now, with AI, a life-like photo can be created from scratch.

To Illustrate – I went to one website, and literally, with a few clicks and a 30 second wait, I was able to make and download the following video. Can you imagine what can be created with some actual effort?!

Sample of fake video with sound.

Next Up – Below is a fully-generated AI image. This person does not exist in real life:

And Finally – The video below of a beach area being wiped out by a giant way is completely AI-generated:

CONCLUSION: We live in a world where anything can be shown or quoted, whether it ever happened or not. A good defense from this kind of trickery is to check multiple sources, especially from sources on the opposite side of the narrative. If it is only found on one side of the conversation, it must be taken with a very large grain of salt. When we speak with our neighbors and interact in our communities, this is what we can really know is true. Outside of that, are we digesting and spreading false information, and if so, for who’s gain (i.e. Are we being manipulated)?

Sending you lots of Light, Life, and Love on your quest!