AI GENERATED CONTENTS AND THE CHALLENGE OF FACT CHECKING

By

Abu Imrān 

AI videos are now so real that you need special discerning eyes to spot them.

Chats can be faked and its screenshot shared.

Pictures can now be brought to life so that two random unrelated person can be made to embrace each other or worse, with mischievous intent.

The picture of a woman fully clothed can be edited into her wearing a bikini, or worse.

The face of an innocent lady can he edited into that of a pornstar using deepfake.

A president can be made to say things they never said.

A large percentage of people can’t tell doctored images and videos online. How on earth do you still hold the disposition that whatever you see online is true, or feel comfortable having your images litter the virtual space especially as a woman? We keep warning about this and people are heedless until they become a victim.

Imagine someone shares with you a picture of your spouse in a compromising scenario with a strange person. Will you act it on it without questioning or investigate?

If you see screenshots purported to be of two people engaged in unwholesome conversations, will you throw guilt by default or hold your peace till there is an investigation (that is if it even should be your business to start with).

If you see a breaking news that an influential person made inciting statements, will you believe it by default and click share, or will you hold your peace and investigate, and only believe after it has been confirmed?

For me, whatever I see on social media is false until proven otherwise.

Many years ago I had an argument that a sharee’ah court will give preference to human witnesses over a video evidence and will only admit it as evidence if there is corroborating evidence. The person suggested that Islam was backwards because video evidence of a man rap*ng a woman for instance should be conclusive evidence of guilt, no questions asked. I will love to have that argument again today so I can confidently say it that Islam is ahead of its time.

Be cautious in how you handle virtual evidence, and how much of you you leave on the digital space intentionally.