As new technologies of creation and deception proliferate, I’ve explored different scenarios and challenges navigating what to believe.
New Cracks in Reality (Aug 4, 2024) — Deep fakes, voice cloning, and other technologies are making fraud more convincing and widespread than ever, but there’s another threat to our ability to answer “what is real?”
Democratizing Digital Deception (May 19, 2024) — Will bad actors use digital duplicates of our dead loved ones against us?
Hacking the Dead, a Microfiction (May 12, 2024) — When a company planning an IPO wants to influence a skeptical analyst, they go about it in a sneaky way that involves Generative AI.
What is Real? (April 14, 2024) — Generative AI makes it effortless to create photorealistic images (and soon videos), but sometimes the question is more complicated than whether something is fake.
Retro Futures: “Wag the Dog” and Deep Fakes (Feb 11, 2024) — A classic 1997 movie about technology-fueled misinformation shows how democratized deception has become in 2024, and why we shouldn’t call them “deep fakes” in the first place.
Generative AI, Misinformation, and the Plausibility Loophole (May 7, 2023) — By now, it’s common knowledge that programs like ChatGPT say things that just aren’t true, but why do we believe the lies so readily? The answer is F.A.B.S.
Why People Believe Conspiracy Theories (Feb 5, 2023) — What makes people believe nonsense for which there is no evidence?
Retro Futures: “Looker” (1981), Looking Back, Looking Forward (Jan 29 2023) — 42 years ago, a murder mystery predicted digital twins and deep fakes: what did this howlingly bad movie get right and wrong?
My 2023 Prediction… or Prayer (Dec 25, 2022) — Many thinkers end each year with a cluster of predictions for the next year. I have just one—and it’s more of a prayer than a prediction—about trust.
Scarier than Skynet: AI and Persuasion (Dec 11, 2022) — Most dystopian fantasies concern monsters we can see conquering us, but with new technologies will we even know if we’ve been conquered?
A New Scam: The “Middle of the Night” Call (Nov 20, 2022) — A call from your burglar alarm company turns out to be something else entirely. What you can do to protect yourself from clever criminals.
Misinformation & “Prebunking,” Experience Stacks & Physical Objects (Sept 11, 2022) —A study suggests that inoculating internet users against misinformation might be more successful than fact checking later, but I’m not so sure. Plus, a price sticker triggers a trip down memory lane.