How AI Can Help Us Understand, Or Radically Misinterpret, the World

Already, Americans are learning not to believe what they see on TV--but new developments in artificial intelligence could give them even more cause for concern. At the moment, digitally manipulating an image is very possible, but time-consuming, expensive and often quite ineffective. Brand new AI systems, however, can generate "fake" videos near-instantaneously, using advanced neural networks that "translate" ordinary circumstances into extraordinary ones. A street freckled with house-cats is suddenly beset by cougars. A Hawaiian street scene is covered in snow.