AI Is Intensifying a 'Collapse' of Trust Online, Experts Say (nbcnews.com)
- Reference: 0180556234
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/2237231/ai-is-intensifying-a-collapse-of-trust-online-experts-say
- Source link: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/experts-warn-collapse-trust-online-ai-deepfakes-venezuela-rcna252472
> President Donald Trump's [2]Venezuela operation almost immediately spurred the spread of AI-generated images, old videos and altered photos [3]across social media . On Wednesday, after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot a woman in her car, many online circulated a fake, most likely AI-edited image of the scene that appears to be based on real video. Others used AI in attempts to [4]digitally remove the mask of the ICE officer who shot her.
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> The confusion around AI content comes as many social media platforms, which pay creators for engagement, have given users incentives to recycle old photos [5]and videos to ramp up emotion around viral news moments. The amalgam of misinformation, experts say, is creating a heightened erosion of trust online -- especially when it mixes with authentic evidence. "As we start to worry about AI, it will likely, at least in the short term, undermine our trust default -- that is, that we believe communication until we have some reason to disbelieve," said Jeff Hancock, founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab. "That's going to be the big challenge, is that for a while people are really going to not trust things they see in digital spaces."
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> Though AI is the latest technology to spark concern about surging misinformation, similar trust breakdowns have cycled through history, from election misinformation in 2016 to the mass production of propaganda after the printing press was invented in the 1400s. Before AI, there was Photoshop, and before Photoshop, there were analog image manipulation techniques. Fast-moving news events are where manipulated media have the biggest effect, because they fill in for the broad lack of information, Hancock said.
"In terms of just looking at an image or a video, it will essentially become impossible to detect if it's fake. I think that we're getting close to that point, if we're not already there," said Hancock. "The old sort of AI literacy ideas of 'let's just look at the number of fingers' and things like that are likely to go away."
Renee Hobbs, a professor of communication studies at the University of Rhode Island, added: "If constant doubt and anxiety about what to trust is the norm, then actually, disengagement is a logical response. It's a coping mechanism. And then when people stop caring about whether something's true or not, then the danger is not just deception, but actually it's worse than that. It's the whole collapse of even being motivated to seek truth."
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/experts-warn-collapse-trust-online-ai-deepfakes-venezuela-rcna252472
[2] https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/03/200236/the-us-invaded-venezuela-and-captured-nicols-maduro---but-chatgpt-and-perplexity-disagree
[3] https://www.instagram.com/reels/DTDeWdtjuC2/
[4] https://www.npr.org/2026/01/08/nx-s1-5671740/ice-minneapolis-grok-ai-renee-nicole-good
[5] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2007681286853538023
"trust default"? (Score:1)
undermine our trust default -- that is, that we believe communication until we have some reason to disbelieve," said Jeff Hancock, founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab. "That's going to be the big challenge, is that for a while people are really going to not trust things they see in digital spaces. I wish!
Law of Demeter (Score:2)
somebody reading my blog, :)
I wrote this three weeks ago
"AI is probably accelerating the "Law of Demeter" effect on the Internet and information"
[1]https://www.scry.llc/2025/12/2... [scry.llc]
Distance + diversity + time = declining trust
the majority model now is devolution back to physical validation. it's too easy to spoof anything online, which I first predicted at DEFCON in 2006 regarding clickfraud.
[1] https://www.scry.llc/2025/12/20/ai-fiat-and-law-of-demeter/
Good. (Score:3)
There should be an erosion of trust online, because it shouldn't have been trusted in the first place. Trust is earned, it's not "I saw it on the Internet." And generally, skepticism and critical thinking skills have been pretty much absent for a long time.
Oh please (Score:4, Interesting)
Distrust has been growing exponentially prior to the rise of LLMs, and video is little more than an added piece of propaganda people must wade through.
This is just a symptom of a larger problem of the decay of institutions, news in service of money, and people too willing to believe anything that fits their biases.
Algorithms certainly don't help, but I'll be damned if anyone really wants to fix anything beyond if it helps their side.
Fuck 'em.
I suspect (Score:2)
It won't just be trust AI collapses...
This might be a good thing (Score:2)
Trusting social media posts without verification is bad
Ideally, as people get skeptical, they will use multiple, trusted sources and common sense
Unfortunately, what often happens is that people reject everything except for the most crazy and fringe
Re: (Score:3)
We do this in the real world: we trust our close friends, and we trust people who are trusted by our close friends less. We also adjust trust up and down on the people we trust, over time, when we can verify their claims.
The idea of trusting a *blog post* or a document intrinsically just because it exists, purely by looking at the contents and not the author, is not generally how people will operate. It's purely a scientific ideal, to treat arguments and ideas without regard to the person who brings them.
I'm not a conspiracy nut, but... (Score:1)
I do wonder whether this might actually be by design.
Perhaps the research and development of all of this was partly driven so that absolutely anything at all can be disregarded as fake, in the end.
Country of Origin (Score:4, Insightful)
Other social media platforms should follow X's lead and show account country of origin for users.
Many of the accounts stoking engagement aren't from the country where the event took place. Viewers of the post should know this.
Re: (Score:2)
Hear, hear!
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
> Other social media platforms should follow X's lead and show account country of origin for users.
Yes, the interesting thing we learned was how many right-wing influencer sites [1]originated in places like Bangladesh and Eastern Europe [cbsnews.com].
But the problem is, once the trolls know that the location of a user's initial sign-on will be made public, it's relatively [2]easy for the troll farms to spoof it [nbcnews.com] in the future.
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/x-foreign-origins-political-accounts/
[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/elon-musk/x-user-location-feature-country-elon-musk-new-rcna245620
Re: Country of Origin (Score:2)
Surely that's easily defeated though? Would be awesome if it could work.
Re: (Score:3)
Twitter/X has a strong incentive to leave it like it is. They make a fortune based out of user engagement, not based on trustworthiness of what goes on their platform.
Re: (Score:1)
X shows the user's country of origin. Other platforms do not. None of what you said makes any sense in relation to his comment.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks. I misread.
Re: (Score:1)
Sorry to burst your bubble, but that has already been faked.
Several account that I have been following were shown to be managed and operated from a different country, but have since been using a VPN which has change that information over time.