I Can’t Believe My Eyes

GENERATIVE AI, GENERATED TRUTH

With how prevalent AI deepfakes have gotten in 2026, you’d be excused for wondering if anything you see in the mainstream media or on the internet is actually true. Back in 2022, thousands were fooled on Twitter (now known as X) when a French physicist and research director posted a picture of chorizo sausage claiming it was a high detail image of the star Proxima Centauri. A few days later, he admitted the post was a joke, but his point in his admission is clear. When we’re expecting something specific, like new high detail pictures of a cosmic body from a newly launched space telescope, we should be aware of our cognitive biases.

The deeper meaning of the chorizo story, while itself not directly AI related, is poignant: our appetites are whetted for what we want to see. In this new world of AI image generation, we are now freer than ever to see only what we want to see. Even reputable mainstream media outlets, formerly bastions of trustworthy news, have used AI video generation shortly after the Maduro capture showing mass parades of Venezuelans celebrating his regime’s collapse. It says a lot about the mainstream media’s trustworthiness that they’re being tricked into reporting on AI generated content as truth, or worse, that these same media companies have knowingly used AI generated content as propaganda to sway their consumers.

It’s time to address the elephant in the room: since no one is immune to propaganda, who or what are we supposed to trust anymore, and how are we supposed to see if something is actually true? Part of the answer comes from watching our biases. In fact, bias as a term has even been weaponized to mean something that’s wrong with us. But we all have leanings, opinions, perspectives, and pattern recognition that simply allow us to survive. It’s more when the patterns fit too well and align with our opinions and leanings too perfectly that we should take care. As long as mainstream media continues to propagate AI generated content, we will continue to see takes specifically tailored to our cognitive biases more and more. The sooner we learn to put on our tinfoil hats and scrutinize everything we see, the better. Or is it?

On one hand, we now live in a media landscape where visual evidence no longer carries the authority it once did. AI can fabricate convincing images and videos that move faster than verification ever can. In moments of crisis, when reliable information is scarce, synthetic content fills the gap and is often relayed by institutions we once trusted to filter fact from fiction. If our eyes can be so easily deceived by a slice of sausage or an AI generated parade, where do we turn for objective truth? While the shifting sands of updates and deepfakes roil out of the internet and media, the Bible continues to be the solid ground of objective truth that it always has been.

It almost seems that God’s purpose in all of this is for us to seek, ask, and question Him about the things we see in the world as they get more and more chaotic, rather than rely solely on our own understanding. When God prompts us in Isaiah 1:18, “Come let us reason together,” is it any wonder that He later bids us ask Him for wisdom if any should lack it in James 1:5? When the psalmist claims that the Word of God is a lamp to guide his feet, can the same truly be said about ChatGPT, BBC, CNN, YouTube, or X?

What’s painfully clear in 2026 and beyond is that seeing is no longer believing. Sound and critical judgement is becoming more of a rarity as well as becoming more essential as a safeguard between what’s reality and what’s a convincing imitation. When you can no longer believe your eyes, suddenly it’s clear that everything requires a measure of faith to believe – the core question is what takes less faith to believe? Faith is and has always been all we – all any of us – ever had. So, consider this when you don’t know who or what to believe anymore: Jesus says in Revelation 3:20: “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.” In the age of the deepfake, the most “real” thing you can do is open that door. In a world where you can’t trust your newsfeed, you can still trust the voice that has been calling out for millennia.