Increasingly, my reaction to watching video clips is, “is it real?”
Such is the potential for looks-like-real fakery, turbo-charged by the release of the new generation of OpenAI’s Sora, that you start to question everything you see.
Deep fakes are not new and predated AI, but the ubiquity and usability of these new tools will turn what was a river of fake content, into a torrent.
A questioning mindset is good and society needs more people to question the provenance of the clips they watch and share, but if no one believes anything anymore, then society will become unmoored from reality.
If everything is fake or might be fake, how can anyone be held to account? Dishonest politicians will simply label everything they don’t like as “fake”, and who is there to say otherwise. Nothing will stick.
The need for ‘real’ has never been greater and professional publishers are well positioned to fulfil that need.
This is a huge opportunity, but to capitalise on it, we need to:
- Keep our nose clean. If we are to become the embodiment of ‘real’, then we mustn’t be tempted to get into the fake content game, either by creating it or disseminating it. We must build trust, and not do anything that might undermine that trust.
- Have clear house rules and guidelines about our own use of AI – to publish them and abide by them.
- Make ‘human’ our thing. AI is amazing, but the best human content trumps AI generated content. We must be known for our human content, we must shout about our humanity and use it as a differentiator.
- Dedicate time to exposing fakery and educating our audience.
- Work with our trade bodies to establish recognisable quality standards and labels, and to then use agreed kitemarks widely.
- To work, again through our trade bodies, with government and reputable international organisations to improve digital literacy so that increasing numbers of people can tell the difference between ‘real’ and ‘fake’.
- To help police the internet, to spot and call out bad actors who might be tempted to exploit our trusted brands for their own purposes, by pretending to be us.
The latest iteration of Sora is both a wake-up call and a massive opportunity.
You can catch James Evelegh’s regular column in the InPubWeekly newsletter, which you can register to receive here.
