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That doesn't sound like a problem to me. If the ideas being expressed offer value to the readers, who/what created them isn't particularly relevant.
> you'll have no idea if the politician/professor/activist on the video is real.
Tying real-world identity to the expression of ideas on the Internet has already created the problems you describe toward the end of your comment. We already see self-censorship, external censorship, and people just regurgitating a "safe" subset of ideas that they may not even actually believe.
Many of the most honest and insightful comments I've seen here were from throw-away accounts, or "Anonymous Coward" on Slashdot, or otherwise weren't immediately tied to an identifiable person.
The most artificial, blandest, and lowest-quality online content I've seen has consistently been from politicians who are merely repeating their party's vetted talking points, or the mass media, or from other identifiable people.
Just like there was a time when 90%-99% of all email traffic was viagra spam but e-mail as a concept survived, I imagine in the future most of the internet by volume will be AI-generated trash, and those in the know will still circulate lists of where the other 1% can be found.
An even brighter scenario is that someone, maybe a kid tinkering in their garage, figures out how to make a search engine that finds the good stuff, doesn't immediately die to AI bot farms' SEO efforts, and is financially viable.
Measuring search ranking by content length is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.
So now people put 'reddit' or whatever in the search to try and get some authenticity but even those platforms are full of corrupt mods and astroturfing.
The UK are always ahead of the game when it comes to a dystopian future, chomping at the bit to put in place some kind of internet-licence to watch pr0n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_UK_Internet_age_verif...
Whole issue of fake media and that, well, look at social media over the years, I doubt it will make much difference than what we have already. People over time, learn what to trust and who to trust.
The real issue though, as you touch upon, will be governments using this as another way to gain even more power and control of our daily lives.
Though my thoughts are, like most new tech that can copy/mimic - it will be the Disney's and movie studios with their lobbyist money that will do the most harm in any progress.
Though mindful of the potential damage, a rouge AI could do in the financial markets.
One upside - postal letters will start to see an increase in usage as people start to trust physical media more over digital. Is certainly a trend I foresee happening.
Enthusiasts in a subject are often wrong, but usually the goal is at least to convey something useful about the topic to the reader.
The spammer/content farmer doesn't care about that. Users trying to farm attention on social media don't care about that. A manipulator on a certain topic doesn't care about that. They just want SEO and eyeballs. But usually the intersection between high quality topical writers and people with these motivations is very low.
...That is not the case any more.
Why? Is a higher "authority" the only solution you can imagine?
Surely you realize that public key cryptography exists and that the politician/professor/activist has people who know him who can confirm he creates the video and those people know others until you reach everyone in a few steps.
What we really need is a network of trust and to teach people how trust works.