Don't believe everything you see and hear | Pickering
I get my morning news via email in a report from the New York Times called "The Morning." Today's read was quite disturbing. It was a piece by Eli Saslow about an interview with Hany Farid, a former UC Berkeley professor and deepfake expert.
Farid appears to have given up hope of distinguishing between genuine and AI-generated media. When one of his students asked if we were all "screwed" – he reluctantly agreed. The Professor has recently relocated to a log cabin on 100 acres in Vermont, apparently to return to something he knows is real, like nature.
Professor Farid says that the damage is usually done long before the experts can determine whether something is authentic. He mentioned a 2023 fake video of the Pentagon exploding. This caused the stock market to immediately react, erasing billions in value in just a few minutes. He also said that much of the footage from the early war in Ukraine was fake, but back then, this was relatively easy to determine. Now most of the AI-generated media arising from the recent war with Iran is indistinguishable from genuine video. The old adage "a picture is worth a thousand words" remains true, even when what is depicted has been completely fabricated and is patently false.
North Korea has even gotten creative. Farid says they are using thousands of government operatives to apply for remote jobs with many US companies, using artificial intelligence to appear to be US citizens. Those salaries are then used to fund North Korea's nuclear program. Is there no one we can trust anymore? And the scams are getting ever more difficult to distinguish from reality. What about engaging in a FaceTime with your CEO in which he directs you to transfer millions to another company? Is he real? It's obvious how such deceptions can do serious damage to today's businesses. If you've bought or sold a home lately, you are familiar with the wire advisory concerning the need for extreme care and the special steps to be used when wiring funds to escrow company accounts. The money to purchase your new home might end up somewhere in the Bahamas if you're not careful – and even then, it can still happen. The world is becoming a scary place.
If even the experts can't figure it out any longer, then there's no hope. Nothing on social media can be trusted. And what about all that UFO/UAP footage the government has been releasing? How do we know it hasn't been altered and we're only seeing what they want us to see? "You can trust me, I'm from the government and here to help you" – isn't that how it goes? I'm not being a conspiracy theorist, just pointing out the difficulties all this undetectable fake media can cause.
Maybe this is an opportunity for our printed newspapers to have a comeback. Perhaps our knowledge of current events will once again come from a physical morning paper. All of the reporters will need to encrypt their stories before sending them directly to their editors. It's going to be crazy out there for a while, but maybe someday we'll once again be relying on our newspapers to get our news – the real news, instead of untrustworthy social media. Who knows, AI fakes might even generate some new newspaper jobs and help restore the noble profession of "reporter" to the status it deserves – maybe even bringing them up to the level of first responders. And don't overlook the potential return of countless newspaper delivery jobs for our young folks. Let's put all those new e-bikes to good use!
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This story was originally published June 18, 2026 at 12:53 PM.