Survey shows widespread fears about AI-fueled misinformation

With a presidential election fast approaching, Americans are having a hard time telling what’s real on the internet—and AI isn’t helping.

Adobe asked around 6,000 consumers in four countries about their encounters with misinformation, as well as their fears that generative AI deepfakes are fueling the problem. The survey registered widespread concern around the issue, to the point that some respondents said they were cutting down on certain social media as a result.

Social media platforms and government agencies have been attempting to curb AI trickery, especially when it comes to election-related content. Adobe, for its part, spearheaded a consortium of organizations called the Content Authenticity Initiative to create what it describes as a “nutrition label” to determine the veracity of online media.

Here are some quick highlights from Adobe’s survey findings:

• Seven in 10 Americans said it’s difficult to verify whether the content they see online is trustworthy, and nearly half (48%) have seen someone they know share what they suspected to be misinformation.
• Images and video are the media formats respondents see as most susceptible to alteration, rather than audio and text.
• Nearly four in five respondents thought that political candidates should be banned from using generative AI content in their ads, something some campaigns and advocacy groups have already experimented with.
• 39% of American respondents said they’ve pared back or stopped use of a social media platform because of the misinformation they encountered on it.

Dana Rao, EVP, general counsel, and chief trust officer at Adobe, said the results underscore the need for more efforts to verify digital media.

“It is critical that we educate consumers about the dangers of deepfakes and provide them with tools to understand what is true,” Rao said in a statement. “With elections coming, now is the time to adopt protective technologies like Content Credentials to help restore trust in the digital content we are consuming.”

But while most seem to agree that something should be done to curb AI fakery, experts say developing tech to root out these fabrications is tricky, and widespread verification will take much coordination between different organizations, like social media platforms and device makers.

Last week, a Senate subcommittee held a hearing on how Congress can best regulate malicious deepfakes, calling on a handful of detection experts, NBC News reported.