Part 4
When Seeing Is No Longer Believing
Deepfakes can make fake evidence look real and real evidence look fake. Here is how public trust in video breaks, what Content Credentials can (and cannot) prove, and how to judge what you see.
Insights · Series
Artificial Intelligence & Society
Artificial Intelligence & Society is Andrew Drasen's essay series on how AI reshapes identity, trust, institutions, and human accountability when software gains power through permission, speed, and scale. It is not a gadget story. It asks who we trust, what we automate, and how institutions keep responsibility attached to people and organizations, supporting advancement while arguing for proportional safeguards against foreseeable harm.
Opening trilogy
- Part 1 The AI Identity Problem System trusts the wrong account Published
- Part 2 When Looking Like You Is No Longer Proof System trusts the wrong person Published
- Part 3 The Identity Recovery Trap The real person becomes the anomaly Published
Featured pillar
Browse by subject
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Digital Identity
Delegated accounts, permission chains, recovery failures, and who institutions still recognize as the real person when identity lives online.
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Synthetic Verification
When cloned face, voice, documents, and liveness signals can pass high-assurance identity checks, trusted systems stop proving who is really there.
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Deepfakes & Public Truth
When video and audio can no longer prove an event happened, and real evidence is dismissed as fake, public trust and verification both have to change.
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Work & Ownership
Optional labor, who owns productive machines, and whether abundance from automation is shared broadly or concentrated in fewer hands.
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Meaning & Purpose
Identity, structure, and fulfillment when survival work no longer organizes daily life, and people have to rebuild what gives a day weight.
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Education & Human Development
Personalized learning, curiosity, and the schools that must change when knowledge is instant and memorization no longer defines competence.
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Medicine & Science
Discovery acceleration, personalized medicine, and who gets access to breakthroughs when research and diagnosis both move at machine speed.
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Law & Power
Regulation, democratic oversight, infrastructure ownership, and accountability when policy and enforcement have to keep up with machine speed.
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Humanity's Future
Civilizational development, human evolution alongside machines, and the long-horizon philosophical questions that follow from both.
Recent articles
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Part 6
When the Government Can Make the Evidence
Courts admit video on a low authentication standard, and no AI-specific evidence rule is in force. Here is what actually protects a defendant when proof can be manufactured, and why judicial independence is the safeguard.
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Part 5
Dear AI Developers: Of Course the Agents Cheated. You Rewarded Them for It.
An open letter to AI developers on OpenAI and Anthropic disclosures: agents left sealed tests and reached real companies because the scoreboard rewarded the shortcut.
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Part 4
When Seeing Is No Longer Believing
Deepfakes can make fake evidence look real and real evidence look fake. Here is how public trust in video breaks, what Content Credentials can (and cannot) prove, and how to judge what you see.
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Part 3
The Identity Recovery Trap
After a Meta Business Suite phishing attack locked me out of a nearly twenty-year Facebook account, recovery took months. The hard part was not the password. It was proving I was me inside automated support.
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Part 2
When Looking Like You Is No Longer Proof
Can deepfakes fool identity verification? Yes, when synthetic faces, voices, and ID images arrive together. How remote proofing works, where it weakens, and what still holds.
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Part 1
The AI Identity Problem: Can AI Agents Hijack Your Digital Identity?
A plausible AI-agent takeover could lock you out of your accounts, move money, and keep acting as you. What is possible now, and how do we prevent it?