AI deepfakes now fool 90% of viewers as society nears consensus reality crisis

An artificial intelligence deepfake expert warns that current AI video generation tools like Google’s Veo 3 are already indistinguishable from real content for 90% of viewers, potentially creating a future where society loses its shared sense of reality. The warning comes as the satirical film “Mountainhead” depicts tech billionaires whose AI video software triggers global chaos through hyperrealistic deepfakes, raising urgent questions about how close we are to such a scenario.

What you should know: AI video generation has reached a critical threshold where distinguishing real from fake content is becoming nearly impossible for most people.

• “For 90% of viewers, Veo 3 is already indiscernible from real, human content,” says Ari Abelson, co-founder of OpenOrigins, a company specializing in content authenticity verification.
• The next 1-2 years could see all content—whether human-created or AI-generated—come under question, creating widespread uncertainty about information reliability.
• Even crude “shallowfake” campaigns, like the slowed-down Nancy Pelosi video that made her appear to slur words, have already demonstrated how simple manipulation can create chaos.

The big picture: Society stands at an inflection point where every form of online communication could collapse into unreliable information if authenticity cannot be verified.

• “If we don’t solve this, we enter a new phase where information sharing, history, news, and facts are decided by opinion rather than what’s actually happening,” Abelson warns.
• News organizations, insurance companies, and military operations will need to fundamentally rethink how they verify and secure authentic content.
• Archives of genuine human content must be protected to preserve “our collective histories in the immense wave of AI slop.”

Why this matters: The erosion of trust in digital content threatens the foundation of how society shares information and maintains a common understanding of reality.

• “We may live in a future of AI control” if content authenticity problems aren’t solved, according to Abelson.
• Industries that rely on authentic media will need to prove content is real and trustworthy at the point of creation.
• The stakes extend beyond individual deception to potentially destabilizing entire information ecosystems.

The proposed solution: Experts suggest creating a two-tier internet system that separates human-created content from AI-generated material.

• “We need to bifurcate the internet into a human and an agentic internet. This is a fundamental change in the underlying infrastructure,” Abelson explains.
• The solution would require a decentralized trust system to verify human-created content and maintain authenticity.
• Such a radical restructuring would represent one of the most significant changes to internet architecture since its creation.

Cultural context: The Max film “Mountainhead” serves as a cautionary tale about tech leaders prioritizing profits over societal consequences.

• The movie depicts four tech billionaires (parodies of Musk, Bezos, Altman, and Zuckerberg) who remain isolated in luxury while their AI video software destroys civilization.
• Currently holding a 78% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the film acts as “a full-on flamethrower-to-the-face, scorched earth, assault” on Silicon Valley leadership.
• The fictional scenario becomes more plausible as real AI video tools like OpenAI’s Sora and Google’s Veo 3 become widely available.