“Believe only half of what you hear, and only half of what you see”
In 1938 a radio broadcast of “War of the Worlds” created by Orson Welles cause widespread panic across the United States. A combination of the immediacy of relatively new Radio Journalism, and intentional realism by Orson Welles made the broadcast so believable that some listeners, many of whom likely tuned in late, assumed the attack to be real. Many did not even realize the broadcast was about extra terrestrials, and assumed it was some new technology from waring nations across the Pacific, turned against New York. One family reported spending their very last $6 on fair to get out of Manhattan, only to later realize the hoax, and not have enough money to return.[1]
As one A. Brad Schwartz put it, “The broadcast itself has become shorthand for the dangerous power and influence of the media, not to mention the gullibility and ignorance of mass audiences.”
If radio had the power to misdirect so completely back in the 1930’s, it pales in comparison to the immediacy and ubiquity of all forms of media today. And now in a very short time we have seen generative AI escalate this problem. Soon there will be almost no barrier for any bad actor to create images, audio, and video that is indistinguishable from reality. The frightening power that this could have in our lives is hard to understate.
This is where bunked.ai can provide solutions. We will empower you to separate reality from fiction by certifying real media in a transparent and immutable manner, and then cryptographically verifying the source. Please check out our website for more information on the technical implementation.
[1] Schwartz, A. Brad. (2015). Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles's War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News. New York, NY: Hill and Wang.