We are not ready for the AI onslaught

Google unveiled Veo3, a generative AI model that can sync video and sound, completely fabricated, and features the ability to create people from nothing. I can't get over the feeling that we have opened Pandora's box, and we haven't even begun to recognize the consequences that will follow.

Soon, we will become unable to discern what is real and what is not. This was a concern with photo manipulation, as well, but the key difference is the scale and ease with which AI creates the same fake material. What required technical skill now requires internet access alone, and a small fee of $20 a month. With that, you can fake government leaders giving speeches they never gave, actors and celebrities doing things they never did, regular people saying things they never said.

How long until we can't trust any video or photo, no matter the source? How long until written material can't be trusted because, as AI often does, many of the claims therein are made up out of thin air?

How long before societal trust withers down to nothing?

We're not ready for this. Lawmakers and tech oligarchs see nothing but dollar signs ahead of them, so they will not slow the technical progress to analyze the impact of their actions. They will make their money, and they will use the power they wield to avoid any of the negative effects they'll impose on the rest of the world. They will not rot in prison for crimes they didn't commit, they will not be forced to fight in wars caused by words never spoken, they will not be condemned to a life of imagery and language with no soul.

But the rest of the world will. And what will that do to us?