National Trust

Our national divisions have reached a boiling point at exactly the same time as AI makes “deep fakes” easy to make and easier to get faked out by. Which means that every news cycle plays out the same way: 

1. Something happens that is captured in a pithy headline intended to generate maximum outrage from one side 

2. That side expresses said outrage, while the other side offers denials, justifications, and/or “whataboutisms” 

3. Video evidence comes out (because when is there ever anything happening on the planet that isn’t being captured by a cell phone camera or surveillance footage), which is either inconclusive yet somehow both sides crow “see?!?” or else it is conclusive in which one side says “see?!?” while the other side says “deep fake!” 

What’s missing in all of this back-and-forth is people with both the resources and objectivity to surveil all of the evidence and render facts, observations, and commentary so that the rest of us can decide whether this affirms, negates, or complicates our previous positions. I’m speaking, of course, about the media, a role once held by the likes of Cronkite and Jennings and Brokaw. And yet most of us feel that the media has been captured by either or both sides of any given argument, rendering it ineffective in breaking through the misinformation and in many cases deeply complicit in stoking misinformed positions. Which is a shame, because a functioning democracy requires, yes the passion of having a position and being outraged when something happens that offends that position, but also honest information from which to understand what’s really going on. 

Recall when Trump and Biden were campaigning against each other the second time, and early reports of Biden’s mental decline were dismissed as right-wing misinformation. Then that first debate happened and Biden showed on national TV that in fact he’d lost something on his fastball. And even though not all voters watch presidential debates, the chatter was loud enough and long enough that eventually it did get to all of America, leading to Biden closing his campaign and stepping aside for Harris. 

But perhaps that will be the last time we see Americans willing to change their positions when video evidence refutes their previous positions. It seems we’re so dug into our narratives that, when faced with incontrovertible evidence that negates something we previously believed, we are more apt to deny, justify, or cry “deep fake.” And there aren’t enough honest brokers, in the media or elsewhere, willing to put in the work to bring that evidence to light and assert the ramifications of that evidence in a way that people will trust the perspective and change their minds.

“Keeping an open mind” does not appear to be a positive trait anymore. Nor is it valued to be the sort of voice of integrity that people look to for commentary, even if it means changing hotly held positions. Most of America distrusts the media and/or rightly complains they aren't doing the basic reporting of digging up information and holding power to account. Put it all together and I don’t like where this is all heading.