Joel Pearson

The click of a button, you can create either photos or videos that look indistinguishable.

And so it's a generative, creative thing now.

It's not about documenting reality anymore.

So that has huge implications for, you know, most of what you see on social media now is synthetic.

It's not caught with a lens and a camera.

We don't know what percentage that is, but it's a lot.

And so it changes the way

we think about things that are caught with a camera, we start to doubt those.

So this deep fake thing, they've been around for a while, but now they're so good that you can't tell the difference.

And there's lots of things happening in this space.

But one thing I'd like to point out is that, so let's say you go online and you see your favorite actor or CEO of a company or politician saying something really upsetting, hurtful, racist.

And you're going, oh my God.

And you see at the bottom, oh, this has been tagged as a fake.

And you can, okay, no problem.

Keep on scrolling.

Now there is a problem there because in that moment, that emotional response you've had changes your mental model of that individual.

Even if you know it's fake.

Even if you know it's fake and you've seen the thing.

So the more, the stronger the emotion around that, or the more horrific the thing they're saying is, and this is called the continued influence effect, that there's a continuing influence on your mental model of that individual, that brand or whatever it is.

And so by being told it was fake, it doesn't undo that.