Political Deepfakes Will Hijack Your Brain — If You Let Them
AI-created images and audio are so good most people can’t tell them from the real thing. But we can rely on critical thinking instead.
The real thing, baby?
Photographer: Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty ImagesRealistic AI-generated images and voice recordings may be the newest threat to democracy, but they’re part of a longstanding family of deceptions. The way to fight so-called deepfakes isn’t to develop some rumor-busting form of AI or to train the public to spot fake images. A better tactic would be to encourage a few well-known critical thinking methods — refocusing our attention, reconsidering our sources, and questioning ourselves.
Some of those critical thinking tools fall under the category of “system 2” or slow thinking as described in the book Thinking, Fast and Slow. AI is good at fooling the fast thinking “system 1” — the mode that often jumps to conclusions.