Hopefully, readers of this blog will have recognized yesterday’s photograph as artificially generated. I provided the photo above and a two-sentence description of the scene I wanted. Three minutes later, I had “created” Moto Maya.
We now live in an era when virtually anyone can create a photorealistic image, limited only by their imagination. Although it takes more processing power and time, the same is true for audio and video. As with all new tools and technologies, this will have beneficial applications. My fear, however, is that the range of negative and unintended consequences is far more consequential and potentially destabilizing to society.
- Non-Consensual Imagery: There has been a massive surge in AI-generated child sexual abuse material and “deepfake” pornography, causing devastating psychological trauma, dehumanization, and reputational damage to victims.
- Democratic Instability: Hyper-realistic synthetic media are used in sophisticated disinformation campaigns to manipulate voter behavior, incite social unrest, and erode public trust in elections and objective truth.
- Financial Fraud: Cybercriminals employ AI video and voice cloning for “vishing,” romance scams, and elaborate corporate fraud, such as impersonating executives to authorize illicit payments.
- Institutional Crises: The “liar’s dividend” allows bad actors to dismiss genuine evidence of misconduct as fake, while fake clinical data and AI-generated doctors promote dangerous medical scams.
- Harassment and Surveillance: Advanced tools enable at-scale harassment, stalking, and “nudifying” individuals without consent, often disproportionately targeting women and minors.
- Economic and Legal Risks: The proliferation of synthetic content threatens to displace human creative labor, while widespread copyright infringement in AI training data has sparked extensive litigation.
- Psychological Impacts: Continuous exposure to indistinguishable fakes can lead to chronic distrust in media and a “crisis of knowing,” where individuals can no longer rely on visual evidence.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words; now, ten words can create an image for which no words can remedy the harm.