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S<\/span>alman Rushdie believes AI will not be a threat to authors until ChatGPT can write \u201ca funny book\u201d. His faith in human over synthetic creativity may hold some truth in the literary space. But on our screens \u2013 from film, art and satire to the algorithmically turbo-charged, factually opaque, monetised churn of the 24\/7 news cycle \u2013 AI is already making us laugh.<\/p>\n Deepfakes \u2013 synthetic audio and video of people doing and saying things they never said or did \u2013 are the chief comedic disruptors <\/strong>in a suite of increasingly persuasive AI tools shaping the post-truth reality envisioned by the Microsoft engineer Eric Horvitz, where fact and fiction are indistinguishable. In eight short years, deepfakes have risen from cultural outlier to mainstream meme, embodying the futurist Roy Amara\u2019s Law: we overestimate the effects of new technology in the short run, but underestimate its long-term impacts.<\/p>\n And with some experts predicting 90% of online content could be AI-generated by 2027, the extent to which synthetic replicas will change how we trust and interact with on-screen depictions of real people is now an urgent question for creators, policymakers and viewers.<\/p>\n When deepfakes emerged in 2017 as incel-produced nonconsensual porn, the alarm they generated was justified. But as soon as deepfakes started being used a political tool, concerns snowballed into panic. Philosophers labelled them an \u201cepistemic threat\u201d to evidentiary systems; corporations mounted costly (and unsuccessful) detection programs; and pundits warned of an \u201cinfo-apocalypse\u201d, in which a convincing deepfake of a world leader could start world war three. Less dramatic but equally chilling was the prediction that the mere awareness of deepfakes would collapse civic trust altogether. In 2018 Jordan Peele made a prophetic deepfake of Obama urging viewers to rely on credible news sources, lest we become a \u201cfucked up dystopia\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Cut to 2025, and satirical deepfakes are part of the news cycle. Shortly after attending Pope Francis\u2019 funeral, US president Donald Trump posted a viral deepfake of himself in papal regalia. In response to Doge cuts to public services, a deepfake of Trump fellating Elon Musk\u2019s foot appeared on a DC government lobby screen. Following Trump\u2019s declaration he would transform Gaza into a Middle Eastern \u201cRiviera\u201d, a satirical deepfake appeared on Instagram, showing Trump sipping cocktails with Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an AI-slop fantasy of Gaza as a beachside resort, full of gold Trump statues and happy Palestinian children. And just last month, South Park\u2019s deepfake of Trump with a micro-penis elicited an official rebuke from the White House.<\/p>\n Deepfakes in fact have been disrupting democratic processes since 2018, when Indian nationalists circulated a deepfake porn video of the journalist Rana Ayyub, in an attempt to silence her. But the elevation of deepfake satire as a weapon in mainstream politics is a more recent trend. During the 2024 US election campaign, Trump posted absurdist deepfakes of Kamala Harris addressing a communist rally and admitting she was a DEI hire. A surreal Republican attack ad showed a deepfake Joe Biden winning the presidency and its AI-imagined consequences: war with Taiwan, bank closures and US cities destroyed by crime. Echoing warnings that the rise of deepfakes could be used to discredit authentic recordings, Trump falsely accused Harris of deepfaking her crowd sizes.<\/p>\n And AI \u201cslopaganda\u201d is coming for Trump too. Viral platforms Make AI Great Again and Global Presidents are generating billions of views for videos featuring a panoply of strongmen \u2013 from Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr <\/strong>Zelenskyy to Kim Jong-un \u2013 emasculating Trump in slapstick pranks. (That Chinese leader Xi Jinping is largely absent from these clips has prompted speculation about their origins and goals.)<\/p>\n In stark contrast to this perniciously populist deepfakery, progressive artists and activists are using AI counterfeits to provoke, astonish and speak truth to power. Stephanie Lepp\u2019s Deepfake Reckonings imagines a \u201cmorally courageous\u201d US justice Brett Kavanaugh; and Kendrick Lamar\u2019s The Heart music video deepfakes him as OJ Simpson and Kobe Bryant, to destabilise assumptions about black identity. Compil des Bleues inserts the faces of France\u2019s soccer stars on to the bodies of its female World Cup team, to highlight the women\u2019s equal athleticism; while the Lincoln Project\u2019s posthumous deepfake of Trump\u2019s father Fred labels his son \u201ca fuck up\u201d, \u201ctrash\u201d and \u201ca disgrace\u201d; declaring \u201cI\u2019ve been dead for 30 years and I\u2019m still ashamed of you.\u201d<\/p>\n We thought Donald could use some words of encouragement from his father Fred, who was such a strong supporter of his career. Fred\u2019s angry he handed over his empire to a son so \u201clow-rent\u201d he even lost money running a casino & will be lucky to keep his dumb ass out of prison. (AI) pic.twitter.com\/5gXtKKHJmS<\/a><\/p>\n