Is this real? When the internet crossed the human–machine line
One of the biggest themes in cyberpunk is the collapse of the boundary between the human and the non-human. In the past five years, this has moved from science fiction to our daily lives. Specifically, the boundary between real human performance and AI-generated media has almost disappeared.
When AI Feels Real
You are scrolling through TikTok late at night when a video stops you. A person is talking directly to the camera, smiling and telling a story. Their voices sound natural. Their faces look real. But something feels weird. You pause and read the comments, and someone writes, “This is AI.” Suddenly, the video looks different. What you thought was a human is actually a machine. Moments like this are becoming normal, at least for me, since this is something that happens a lot to me. These moments make clear that the boundary between human and machine is collapsing in front of us.
The Rise of AI-Generated Media
Artificial intelligence can now generate realistic faces, voices, and videos that are almost impossible to distinguish from real people. Five years ago this would have never been possible. Technology has been used to create fake celebrity videos, AI voice tools can copy someone’s voice in seconds, and some TikTok accounts are run entirely by AI-generated influencers. AI video generators are improving so quickly that even experts sometimes struggle to identify what is real and what is artificial. The internet has become a space where human presence is no longer guaranteed.
Why is this happening?
This shift is the result of multiple forces working together. Technologically, AI systems have become better at learning patterns of human behavior, language, and also emotion. This reminds me of Ada Lovelace’s idea that machines could manipulate symbols beyond numbers, including images, music, and language. What she imagined can now be seen on our screens. Additionally, platforms like TikTok and Instagram reward content that catches attention quickly, regardless of whether it is human-made or AI-generated, which makes it very attractive to most people.
Who benefits and who is impacted?
However, this new reality benefits some groups more than others. Tech companies profit from AI tools, influencers use them to increase output, and governments can use them for messaging and control. At the same time, artists lose ownership of their work, viewers lose trust in what they see, and society loses a shared sense of truth. The spread of "deepfakes" makes it harder for citizens to distinguish between real news and computer-generated lies (Simonite, 2019). It becomes easier to spread false information and more difficult to hold people accountable when we can no longer trust faces, voices, or videos. As a society, we have to think about what it means to be human in the digital age if we are unable to tell the difference between AI and actual people online. Considering how well machines can imitate people, how should we assess trust and creativity?
This shows that the rise of AI is not just a technology problem, but it also changes how we see people and truth online. When machines can copy humans so well, it becomes harder to know what is real. We need to think carefully about trust, creativity, and what it means to be human.
AI Attestation: I attest that I did not use AI for this discussion assignment.
Sources
Simonite, T. (2019, October 6). Prepare for the Deepfake Era of Web Video. Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/prepare-deepfake-era-web-video/