Remember 2022, the golden era of the internet? Back then, a reel popped up on my Instagram feed. Security footage captures a man sitting on a Target-ball in front of a store. Target-ball? You know what I mean, those large red concrete balls spaced in front of Target’s glass entryway. They make smash-and-grab rammings nearly impossible. In the footage, an out-of-control car slams into the ball next to where the man sits. The ball caroms into the ball beneath the man, knocks it away like a billiard ball, and the new ball stops directly under the man’s butt. One ball replaced the other. The man barely reacts. He probably doesn’t even know he’s sitting on a new ball yet.

“Whoa!” I watch it again and again. I can’t see any evidence that it’s fake. Convinced, I share it with my family. Real life is better than fiction. I love stuff like this. Loved! In 2022, I could watch it all day. That’s in the past now. Today, anything unbelievable is assumed to be AI.

Last week, I saw a video on Facebook. A grizzly draped itself over a car. It inadvertently pushed the car down the road as it tried to find a good angle to lick spilled food off the car hood. Realistic? Horns blared, the bear huffed, the car beneath the bear struggled under the added weight. Even the camera angle looked believable, as if the photographer tried to keep an extra car between themselves and the bear. Everything appears legit, but the bear is too big, even for a grizzly. It’s as big as the car.

I’ve seen a grizzly up close. The Cabela’s Sporting Goods in Hamburg, Pennsylvania has a taxidermized grizzly standing upright in their store. When my kids were young, we often stopped there for bathroom breaks as we drove to visit their grandparents. Cabela’s had the grizzly, a couple of elk and several huge aquariums filled with lake trout. It’s a nice break after a few hours in the car. The grizzly is massive. It’s unbelievable, frightening, awe inspiring, but it’s not as big as a car. Probably.

Here’s the thing. Maybe the grizzly video could be authentic. Maybe grizzlies actually grow that big. What do I know. I’m a city-guy from Washington, DC. But it no longer matters. I can’t tell the difference between real and fake. And if it isn’t real, what’s the point. The video isn’t exciting if Google Veo 3 thought it up. It’s impressive that AI has advanced so far since Chat GPT’s splashy release a couple of years ago, but it has ruined the magic of the unbelievable. It put an end to wonder.

Yesterday, the New York Times published a test. They posted ten short videos. Readers watched the videos and then guessed whether the content was genuine or AI generated. I got seven out of ten correct, but not because I could spot AI, the videos all looked real to me. I just used basic psychology. The more outlandish the video seemed, the less likely I was to call it AI. The most mundane videos, a guy livestreaming as he walked down a dirt road, two news anchors introducing themselves, those were fake. A whimsical clip of a model releasing balloons into the sky while flapping birds surround her, that one is real.

This is my question, my fear. Will I ever be stunned by a photograph again? A list of some of the greatest, most recognizable photos in history: Charles Ebbets – Lunch atop a Skyscraper; Nick Ut – Napalm Girl*; Alfred Eisenstaedt – V-J Day in Times Square; Steve McCurry – Afghan Girl. The next time a world-changing photograph is published, will we even know if it’s real? Will an artist capture a unique and beautiful (or terrible) moment in time, or will a clever app simply generate something sure to stir those idiotic humans who keep the electricity running.

As if to put an exclamation point on this thought, just before bed last night, I saw a tornado reel on Facebook. Tornados fascinate me. The raw, focused power makes the ‘finger of God’ analogy I’ve heard since childhood the most appropriate descriptor. The tornado in this video was a monster, ever approaching the camera as it tore a swath across the barren countryside. It’s exactly the sort of video I would watch repeatedly, mesmerized by the awful beauty of nature. Instead, I gave my head a quick shake swiped to watch Anatoly prank another room full of muscleheads. Hmmm, I wonder if that one was real. It’s much easier to create these videos on a computer than find a group of weightlifters who haven’t heard of Anatoly.  

*The attribution of Napalm Girl is currently in dispute. World Press Photo has determined that it’s possible Nick Ut, did not shoot the photo. “’Visual and technical’ evidence ‘leans toward’ an emerging theory that a Vietnamese freelance photographer, Nguyen Thanh Nghe, took the photo.”

Image: Screenshot captured from Facebook