Even the most internet-savvy are finding it increasingly hard to distinguish what's real and what's made with artificial intelligence in 2026. After all, how many times have we seen videos reminding us how far videos of Will Smith eating spaghetti have come?
Despite issues with Elon Musk's Grok, he's recently been hyping its own improvements in terms of video length and sound, and we've got to admit, things are advancing by the day. It's all well and good when people are mocking videos of Donald Trump sucking Musk's toes, but when the president himself uses AI to tease he'll break the constitution, or is dumping feces on protestors, some have called the POTUS' use of it into question.
President Donald Trump has attempted to prove he's up to date with all things tech by signing massive AI orders and regularly using it, but according to the Associated Press, the latter could be having a 'dangerous' side effect.
Trump has warned about the so-called use of 'woke' AI, but according to experts, we need to be wary of misinformation on both sides.
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The outlet points to an image of civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong, seemingly in tears after being arrested. Whereas the original was shared by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the official White House X account posted a digitally altered (albeit realistic) snap of her in floods of tears.
While critics called out the official channels of the Trump administration for sharing an AI image, Deputy Communications Director Kaelan Dorr brought further backlash when he said the "memes will continue.” This was echoed by White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson, who also mocked those who were angered by the digitally altered version of Armstrong.
Discussing the Armstrong situation, David Rand, a professor of information science at Cornell University, maintains that calling these kinds of images a 'meme' "certainly seems like an attempt to cast it as a joke or humorous post, like their prior cartoons.
“This presumably aims to shield them from criticism for posting manipulated media."
More than posts depicting Donald Trump as a Star Wars character, altering an arrest image is "much more ambiguous."
Republican communications consultant Zach Henry says using AI-enhanced or edited imagery is a way to appeal to a specific demographic, praising the usual work of White House's social media team: "People who are terminally online will see it and instantly recognize it as a meme. Your grandparents may see it and not understand the meme, but because it looks real, it leads them to ask their kids or grandkids about it."
According to Michael A. Spikes, a professor at Northwestern University and news media literacy researcher, this will only fuel distrust from supposedly reliable sources like the government: "The government should be a place where you can trust the information, where you can say it’s accurate, because they have a responsibility to do so.
"By sharing this kind of content, and creating this kind of content...it is eroding the trust — even though I’m always kind of skeptical of the term trust — but the trust we should have in our federal government to give us accurate, verified information. It’s a real loss, and it really worries me a lot."
With Spikes saying there's already an 'institutional crises' where people don't trust the news, the government is in danger of fanning the flames of controversy.
There's been a similar boom of AI content in the aftermath of Renée Nicole Good and Alex Pretti's deaths, as the trend seems to be getting worse.
Jeremy Carrasco is a content creator who specializes in media literacy and debunking viral AI videos, concluding that most don't know "what’s real or not when it actually matters, like when the stakes are a lot higher."