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AI generated content has already become a part of our lives and our social media feeds, and Instagram head Adam Mosseri believes it is only going to increase in the coming years. In his year-end reflections shared on Threads, Mosseri says that for the majority of our lives, we have believed what we see to be real, but that is about to change with the advent of AI, and it will take humans years to adapt to it.
“For most of my life I could safely assume that the vast majority of photographs or videos that I see are largely accurate captures of moments that happened in real life. This is clearly no longer the case and it’s going to take us, as people, years to adapt,” Mosseri wrote.
“Over time we are going to move from assuming what we see is real by default, to starting with skepticism when we see media, and paying much more attention to who is sharing something and why they might be sharing it,” he added.
How will AI generated content influence social media?
Mosseri says that everything that made creators successful, their ability to be real, to connect with users, to have a voice, is now becoming increasingly replicable. He pointed to the rise of deepfakes, AI generated photos and videos that are becoming “indistinguishable from captured media.” He also says that synthetic content is starting to fill up feeds, and that authenticity is becoming a “scarce resource.”
But what does this mean for creators? Mosseri says, “Creators who succeed will be those who figure out how to maintain their authenticity whether or not they adopt new technologies.”
However, he also predicts that it will become harder to remain authentic because, as he puts it, everyone will be able to simulate authenticity and the “bar is going to shift from ‘can you create?’ to ‘can you make something that only you could create?’”
He also says that content consumption and creation will move away from romanticising the past with polished visuals to a world where imperfection becomes a signal.
“We are going to see a significant acceleration of a more raw aesthetic over the next few years. Savvy creators are going to lean into explicitly unproduced and unflattering images of themselves. In a world where everything can be perfected, imperfection becomes a signal. Rawness isn’t just aesthetic preference anymore. It’s proof. It’s defensive. A way of saying: this is real because it’s imperfect,” Mosseri wrote.
However, he also warns that advancements in AI will soon allow people to generate any aesthetic they like, “including an imperfect one that presents as authentic.”
“At this point we’ll need to shift our focus to who says something instead of what is being said,” he added.
Mosseri also says that humans will move from assuming what they see is real to approaching media with skepticism, while “paying much more attention to who is sharing something and why they might be sharing it.”
He also notes that social media platforms are going to come under increasing pressure to identify and label AI generated content, but detection will only get harder as “AI gets better at imitating reality.”
“There is already a growing number of people who believe, as I do, that it will be more practical to fingerprint real media than fake media. Camera manufacturers could cryptographically sign images at capture, creating a chain of custody,” he suggested.