What Happens When We Don’t Trust Anything?

It turns out many of the videos people love to share online aren’t what they seem. Those viral clips of porch pirates getting sprayed with paint? Often staged or completely fake. Dramatic disaster footage? Frequently manufactured. Even many so-called heartwarming animal rescue videos fall apart under scrutiny. Polar bear cubs don’t wander into towns asking humans for help, and most wild animals avoid people altogether. The rare exception is seals, which really do sometimes jump onto boats to escape killer whales.

Welcome to the age of artificial intelligence.

With today’s AI tools, almost anything a person can imagine can be turned into a realistic video in minutes. Faces, voices, disasters, crimes, none of it has to be real to look convincing. Ironically, one of the easiest ways to check whether something might be fake is to ask an AI system itself, which will often explain how such videos are made.

The result is a growing sense that reality itself is fragmenting.

There was a time when shared media created shared experiences. Families gathered around radios or televisions for major events. Big sports games, moon landings, and popular TV premieres were watched by millions simultaneously. They became common reference points, topics at school, at work, and around the dinner table.

Today, media consumption is scattered. Children scroll through TikTok. Grandparents watch Facebook Reels. Everyone sees a different version of the world, and much of what appears on those screens may not be true. Studies cited by ResearchGate and other academic sources suggest that constant exposure to fake or misleading videos can lead to widespread cynicism, the feeling that “nothing is real”—and a general loss of trust in all media.

That erosion of trust has real consequences. If people stop believing what they see, even verified evidence can be questioned. Legal experts have raised concerns about juries doubting the authenticity of video evidence or defendants claiming that real footage is AI-generated. In a world trained to expect fakery, the truth can be dismissed as just another illusion.

There may be a silver lining. As misinformation spreads, some experts believe people may begin demanding clearer verification and more credible sources. That could create an opportunity for traditional journalism to reassert its value.

But journalism faces an uphill climb. A Gallup poll released in September 2025 found that public trust in traditional news media had fallen to 28 percent, the lowest level in 50 years.

As AI continues to blur the line between real and fake, the challenge ahead may not just be spotting falsehoods, but rebuilding the shared trust that once helped societies agree on what is real in the first place.