Or maybe people will just start requiring more evidence that something actually happened instead of believing everything they find on Tiktok (or the wider internet), which would actually be a good thing.
9/10 people will just accept it, probably 7/9 wont have much other option without any practical ability to authenticate the hundreds of things they see a day.
I'll give you one decent example from recent popular media: Sandy Hooks. Alex Jones didn't even need a deep fake to convince people.
PS: People being manipulated by propaganda is really old news. The only thing that the internet has changed is that all the village idiots who easily fall for propaganda discovered that each village has its idiot and they started to communicate and coordinate. But that's unrelated to deep fake and was already a problem before.
Really, that's "internet user 101", I can't believe we're having such a discussion on HN :)
Photoshop didn't cause society to collapse and photoshop-for-video won't either.
the defense often cannot afford experts.
Also there is a long history of experts lying, in the U.S at least but I suppose elsewhere as well.
I'm already somewhat hopeful that if deepfakes can be reliably detected juries will be automatically skeptical of unauthenticated videos and prosecutors will view getting their videos authenticated as an easy way to strengthen their case. I already suspect close to every picture I see has been edited and altered somehow.
(And even then sometimes wonder if a hardware hack was involved)
If some major news org said they contacted Tom Cruise and asked him if the video was real and he said it wasn't him, then as an average person I'd probably believe them because I have at least some degree of trust that they'll either tell the truth or get called out on the lie and ultimately what do I care either way.
It's extraordinary claims that require extraordinary evidence and "Paris Hilton and Tom Cruise do rich people things on camera" doesn't meet that threshold. If someone posted a video of the president eating a live baby I'd probably be more skeptical of my sources.
Get "called out" how, exactly?
With the distribution channels centralized, how do you call out a lie by a "major news org", if the gvt (Google, Youtube, FB, Twitter…) decide to play along and suppress your message?
The EU Commissar of Truth, Vera Jourova, announced that "the era of the Wild West for free speech is over". She also cited "gentlemen's agreement" with the "big boy" platforms where legislation is lacking for now. Chilling.
To the degree that the censorship machine fails, it fails for technical reasons, not for a lack of appetite.
A resigned shrug and "ultimately what do I care" is increasingly common. It might be a self-correcting problem, on the evolutionary scale.
> If someone posted a video of the president eating a live baby I'd probably be more skeptical of my sources.
Isn't that because you've lived a life grounded (mostly) in physical reality? With free access to (mostly) uncensored information?
We might be surprised what's considered "extraordinary" with respect to a "sceptical threshold" in the future, especially once the pre-internet generation dies out. And digital information with digital influencers (AI or not!) beholden to a few centralized platforms shaping the consensus reality.