Sara Fischer: The AI-generated disinformation dystopia that wasn’t

This piece is by WWSG exclusive thought leader, Sara Fischer. 

Amid the craziest news cycle in recent memory, AI-generated deepfakes have yet to become the huge truth catastrophe that experts warned would be coming.

Why it matters: Media outlets and tech platforms have gotten better at spotting and debunking AI misinformation quickly.

• Most falsehoods that go viral during breaking news are still created not through doctored media, but through manipulated context, such as the wrong caption describing when a photo was taken.

Case in point: In the wake of the Trump assassination attempt, many mainstream news outlets and wire services, including Reuters, The AP, Politico, BBC and CNN, quickly posted fact checks debunking the validity of a doctored image that appeared to show Secret Service agents smiling while lifting Trump to his feet on stage after the shooting.

• Several other fact-checking sites, including Factcheck.org, Verify and Politifact were also able to quickly debunk the photo using very standard fact-checking methods, such as reverse image search results.

Zoom in: The Biden campaign felt comfortable enough with people’s trust in social media that he posted the announcement of his withdrawal from the presidential race on X, Facebook, Instagram and Threads, before alerting traditional media.

Yes, but: Doctored photos and video can still break through if tech platforms aren’t quick to police them.

• The fake image of the smiling secret service agents still exists on X, formerly Twitter, but now with a Community Note attached.
• While these Community Notes can be helpful, they’re sometimes not added quickly or broadly enough to stop misinformation from spreading.
• Musk has made X a breeding ground for a lot of misinformation that gets picked up and spread on smaller platforms where they go viral.

• A highly implausible deepfake PBS News video of Biden cursing is also still circulating on X, but PBS was quick to point out that it isn’t real.

Broader conspiracies that have little to do with doctored photos or videos have proven even harder to stop.

• In the wake of the Trump assassination, conspiracies about who the gunman was and the motivation behind the shooting gained plenty of steam online, but most of those falsehoods weren’t predicated on doctored photos.

What to watch: While AI-generated deep fakes have become easier for news outlets and fact-checkers to debunk in real-time, customized responses to AI chatbots about breaking news are much harder to police.

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