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Photo illustration by Ramesh Jaura using licensed and AI-assisted elements.
August 6, 2026
By Ramesh Jaura
Key Takeaways:
Credibility has become a form of strategic power: when trust collapses, democratic cooperation, markets, diplomacy and even basic public decision-making become fragile.
Technology alone cannot restore trust; it must be rebuilt through institutional integrity, transparent corrections, independent verification, and everyday civic habits of checking and accountability.
The most serious problem of the AI age might not lie in the ease with which lies can be produced, but in the increasing difficulty of believing in the truth. When a voter hears a familiar voice in a piece of footage, they pause for thought. A parent seeing a disturbing picture on their phone begins to question whether or not to pass it on. A journalist who receives a recording must now begin by wondering if it is genuine.
Ordinary people scrolling through social media are confronted with viral videos that may be digitally altered or entirely fabricated. Friends send each other photos in group chats that look real but could easily have been made by an app. Even a neighbour’s message in a local WhatsApp group can spark debate over whether the evidence it contains can be trusted.
The traditional ‘credibility gap’ revealed a loss of trust in government; today’s crisis is more severe since it is the same kind of system intended to determine what is real that is now itself being doubted.
It’s a struggle to achieve believability. In an age characterised by artificial intelligence, digital fragmentation and geopolitical rivalry, credibility is no longer a mere virtue; it is the capacity to make evidence count, to make institutions believable and to make the truth persuasive.
The contest is no longer limited to a single government, conflict, or controversy; all governments, journalists, scientists, businesses, financial markets and international organisations have to meet the same challenge – that of staying believable in a world which has been taught to doubt them.
The main issue is a strategic one—when information can be fabricated, authority can be challenged and shared reality is no longer assumed, who can make the truth credible?
The origins of this situation go deeper than any one technology; each communications revolution has always disturbed existing authority—the printing press altered religion and politics, radio brought propaganda into the homes of millions, television changed the way wars and leaders were judged. The internet promised to democratise knowledge on a scale which had never before been imaginable.
The latest development in that story is artificial intelligence, even though it is not the starting point. Political polarisation began long before social media and propaganda became available through digital technology. What has changed is the speed, the extent and the sophistication now available in the creation, distribution and manipulation of information.
Throughout most of the twentieth century nations mainly competed in terms of their military strength and economic power. Nowadays they also compete in the areas of technology, innovation, data and access to vital resources. In a world in which falsehoods can be made believable, one asset has now become just as important: the ability to make the truth identifiable.
Trust: The Invisible Infrastructure of Civilisation
Trust and believability are closely connected, but they are not identical. Trust is the social situation which enables individuals, markets and institutions to function without having to be constantly suspicious. Credibility is the ability to earn that trust by means of competence, honesty, consistency and accountability. The first is the atmosphere that makes cooperation possible; the second is the discipline which maintains it.
If people have a great deal of trust, they hardly notice it; but when trust is gone, everyday life becomes much more fragile. People go to banks to avoid the risk of their savings being lost. Patients often doubt the medical advice they are given. Parents ask themselves if schools, courts or officials will treat them fairly.
Democracies rely on the belief that elections will be respected, that courts will retain their authority and that constitutional rules will endure even when political circumstances are disappointing. International cooperation is based on the idea that assurances made between nations have meaning beyond immediate convenience.
It is becoming more difficult to maintain that foundation. The OECD’s 2024 Trust Survey collected just under 60,000 responses from 30 OECD countries and showed that low or no trust in national governments exceeded high or moderately high trust. The Edelman Trust Barometer 2026 predicts a move towards insularity, as seven out of ten respondents were hesitant to trust people different from themselves. The Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2026states that the average level of trust in the news is 37 per cent. It reveals that online platforms have overtaken television and news organisations’ own websites and apps as the main sources of global news.
Taken together, these numbers suggest that a large share of people in democracies now approach not only institutions but also each other with caution and scepticism. This decline in trust can make daily cooperation more difficult, fuel division within societies, and weaken the sense of common ground that democracies rely on to function. Although these are different measures, they all indicate that shared confidence is declining.
Civilisation’s quiet structure doesn’t lead to collapse all at once; the roads stay open, trading in the markets goes on, and governments carry on with their work. Yet underneath the surface, uncertainty increases, people take more care in making decisions, and cooperation becomes more difficult. The digital age didn’t cause this vulnerability, but it has made the vulnerability more visible and more difficult to control.
From the Information Age to the Age of Doubt
Hannah Arendt, in The Origins of Totalitarianism, states that the ideal subject for totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but rather people for whom the difference between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
As the internet shifted from being a symbol of democratic potential to becoming the main information system, its vulnerability became more apparent. Towards the end of the twentieth century, it was associated with a strong sense of hope—the idea that knowledge would be available to anyone who had a computer and, subsequently, a mobile phone. It brought about changes in the field of education, enabled a level of collaboration in scientific research never before seen, allowed small businesses to enter global markets and enabled ordinary people to act as eyewitnesses to wars, disasters and abuses. There had never been a time when so many people had gained access to such a large amount of information so rapidly.
Yet all communication revolutions involve contradictions; the printing press increased the amount of knowledge while at the same time causing religious disputes; radio linked together the different nations although it also helped spread propaganda; television brought the wars that took place far away into people’s homes while at the same time altering the public’s judgement of leaders. The internet was no exception. It had the effect of making communication more democratic, but it also diminished the gatekeepers who had previously helped to distinguish verified information from speculation.
It soon became clear to web platforms that outrage spread more quickly than moderation, that certainty transmitted more rapidly than nuance, and that emotion generated more engagement than careful analysis. Although the algorithms had not been created to strengthen or weaken democracy, they had been designed to hold people’s attention. Yet inevitably they started to reward the kind of content most likely to provoke an emotional response.
The results are real. According to the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2026, social media and video platforms are currently on average more popular worldwide than either television or the publishers’ own websites and apps when it comes to sourcing news. The report also notes growing concern about online misinformation and a growing number of experiments with AI chatbots as a way of accessing news. This change goes beyond a simple technological shift; it alters who serves as the mediator of public reality.
The change is deep-seated. In most of the twentieth century, democratic societies vigorously debated public policy while at the same time possessing a generally shared understanding of the facts. Newspapers of record, public broadcasters, universities and scientific institutions offered a common starting point against which disagreement could arise. Nowadays it is more difficult to find that common ground: people no longer disagree merely about solutions; instead, they are increasingly in disagreement about reality itself.
Arendt’s warning has gained increased strength; when competing accounts have more influence than verifiable evidence, public debate changes from being about conflicting ideas to being about conflicting realities.
The challenge currently facing us is therefore greater than the problem of misinformation; it represents a crisis of public confidence which extends to ordinary judgments. Before citizens, officials or journalists can discuss what a photograph, a recording or a document means, they now have to consider first whether it even exists as evidence. The Information Age had promised access to knowledge; the challenge we now face is maintaining confidence in that knowledge. It was at that moment that artificial intelligence appeared with a new ability: not only to distribute information but also to produce convincing versions of reality.Subscribe
Artificial Intelligence and the End of Authenticity
The new capacity represents a decisive break. However, artificial intelligence is frequently compared to the printing press, electricity, or the internet; it is, in one important respect, different, since the previous revolutions altered the way in which information travelled, while AI is altering the way in which information is created.
For centuries, people thought that photographs, recordings and videos had at least some link with reality; although the images could be altered, fabrication generally needed skill, time and resources.
Machines are now able to produce articles, photographs, voices, and videos that have no real-life equivalent. Synthetic content is becoming less expensive, quicker to produce, and ever more difficult to tell apart from genuine material.
The potential is huge: artificial intelligence can speed up medical discoveries, analyse large datasets, improve crop management, provide personalised learning, and make public services more responsive.
For example, AI has been used to rapidly identify potential drug therapies and vaccine targets by analysing genetic information, helping researchers respond more quickly during public health emergencies.
In agriculture, AI-driven analysis of satellite imagery allows farmers to predict weather patterns better and optimise fertiliser use, resulting in higher yields and less environmental impact.
In education, adaptive learning platforms powered by AI provide students with tailored lesson plans, addressing individual strengths and weaknesses. Public agencies now deploy AI to detect fraud, streamline the delivery of social benefits, and allocate emergency resources more efficiently. At the same time, the same systems which enable discoveries can also produce deception at an unprecedented speed and on an unprecedented scale.
The legal scholars Danielle Citron and Robert Chesney refer to this effect as the “liar’s dividend”. When it comes to fabricated pictures, recordings and videos, it becomes all the easier to dismiss genuine evidence: an authentic recording can be claimed to be fake, a real photograph can be described as having been produced by AI, and the possibility of manipulation can be used as a defence against accountability.
The dangers are already tangible. A judge could be required to decide if a recording is genuine before the case goes ahead. An election official might have only a few hours in which to reassure voters that a widely circulated clip is not true. A family could come across a forged image before any correction gets to them. Markets can react to false statements, and diplomats or military commanders may have to deal with altered communications during crises.
The common information space was already weakened by political polarisation, declining confidence in public authorities, fragmented media ecosystems and geopolitical rivalry before generative AI appeared. Artificial intelligence is not the source of the crisis; it is an accelerator that increases pressure on democratic institutions and on society’s ability to tell evidence apart from manipulation.
It cannot rely solely on technology. Governments should set up rules which safeguard innovation without reducing freedom; technology companies should agree to greater transparency; journalists should have more robust methods of authentication; and schools should teach critical judgement as a civic skill.
At the same time, individuals play a crucial role in defending the truth and protecting the integrity of public life. Simple steps can make a difference: fact-check information before sharing it, support trustworthy journalism through subscriptions or donations, engage in respectful dialogue rather than spreading outrage, and teach younger generations how to question images or claims they encounter online.
By making informed choices about what we share and support, ordinary citizens can help rebuild a culture of credibility from the ground up. Nevertheless, all of these solutions raise a more basic democratic question – whether free societies can maintain confidence in the institutions responsible for distinguishing evidence from manipulation.
Democratic Governance and the Public Record
Democracy has always been without the need for everyone to agree; in fact, it is strong because it can take into account differing opinions, competing interests and lively public discussion. At the same time, it does need certain limits—such as the assurance that votes are actually counted, that the courts interpret the law on their own, that official records are genuine, and that governments can be made accountable for both what they say and what they do.
The problem that today’s democracies are facing is not merely polarisation or the spread of misinformation. In the past, democracies have endured intense division, and rumour, propaganda and conspiracy theories have always been part of politics. What is different now is the increasing fragility of a shared public record—whether votes, court documents, official statements, photographs and recordings can still be regarded as evidence across political divides.
The effects can be seen in all aspects of democratic life. A voter might question if a campaign recording is authentic. A patient might put off acting on public health advice. A citizen might wonder if other people will accept the outcome of an election or an official statement. Courts, journalists, and election authorities have to authenticate digital evidence more and more before they can act on it responsibly.
As a result, democratic politics changes, since compromise grows more difficult because compromise requires a common understanding of the problem. Public faith diminishes when all the institutions are seen through a partisan viewpoint, and even when policies are a success, they fail to gain legitimacy if large parts of society reject the evidence that supports them.
It cannot be solved merely by technological means. Algorithms are unable to win back the public’s confidence, and no software can reconstruct democratic legitimacy. These responsibilities belong to political leaders, to independent courts, to responsible journalism, to universities, to the electoral authorities and, in the end, to the citizens themselves.
The credibility shock therefore extends well beyond the digital world and has an impact on the relationship between governments and the people under them. Democracy’s strength has never been judged merely by the number of elections it conducts or by the amount of legislation it enacts; rather, it is determined by the degree of confidence that citizens place in the institutions which govern public life.
The same reasoning applies across national boundaries. The international order rests on governments’ belief that agreements mean something, on organisations being regarded as legitimate and on alliances being able to withstand changes in government. Once credibility has declined at home, it eventually alters the relations between countries, turning a domestic crisis of confidence into a strategic issue.
Credibility as Strategic Power
When viewed in this way, credibility is not merely a moral attribute but a kind of power. Together with soldiers, ships, aircraft, industrial output, technology, cyber capabilities, and control of critical resources, nations have for ever depended on a more invisible resource — whether or not others believe their promises, warnings, and institutions.
Countries which keep their promises can borrow more readily, negotiate with greater confidence, attract students and investment, and gain more respect for their courts and institutions. None of these benefits can be forced upon them; they all have to be earned.
It is now obvious that this situation exists because of the recent crises. The pandemic caused by COVID-19 demonstrated that public health relies on people’s confidence in scientific advice. Market stability can be disrupted when official information is doubted. Today’s wars are fought not only over territory but also over competing narratives, images, videos and digital evidence.
States therefore do not merely demonstrate their capabilities but also work to ensure that others regard certain things as reliable; to achieve influence, they finance narratives, safeguard their information systems, and combat disinformation because the trustworthiness of their institutions, commitments, and evidence is essential.
While military power can be accumulated in this way, credibility cannot. It must be restored by keeping one’s promises, making clear decisions, correcting mistakes and taking responsibility when power is misused. It can endure errors if honest institutions admit them and make the necessary repairs, but it cannot indefinitely endure a continuous decline in public confidence.
This gives democracies a special problem. Since open societies rely on transparency, on close examination, and on free discussion, these advantages can be exploited by well-organised campaigns aimed at spreading doubt and causing division. The solution is not censorship nor a return to the media era of old; instead it lies in improved performance by institutions—meaning governments that make their decisions clear, journalists who check things before publishing, scientists who allow their evidence to be tested, and international organisations that show themselves to be fair, capable and consistent.
Power, technological capability and economic strength still play a role. However, in a world in which information is itself disputed, credibility now decides whether power can be exercised effectively and whether leadership can win trust rather than provoke suspicion. The strategic question thus once again becomes a civic one: how is trust to be restored after it has been weakened?
Renewing Trust: The Credibility Imperative
History provides a cautious kind of comfort. In the past, societies have had to cope with great uncertainty and have managed to recover. The Industrial Revolution caused governments to reconsider questions of labour, education and public health; the destruction caused by the world wars led to the creation of new institutions; and the internet changed the way people communicate. In each case there was disruption, but societies were able to adapt whenever the institutions changed.
Renewal cannot result merely from technological advances. Nothing whatsoever can rebuild confidence in a government that is not trusted; no algorithm can take the place of independent journalism, and no watermark can make up for institutions that are not transparent, accountable and truthful.
Credibility is enhanced by governments acknowledging their errors, giving honest explanations of difficult decisions, and taking responsibility. Journalists gain the trust of the public through being fair, accurate and by making corrections. Scientists can keep their authority because their conclusions remain open to being examined and revised.
The situation is clear-cut: the credibility blow could serve to increase the public’s lack of trust and lead to even greater societal division, or it could prompt governments, journalists, teachers, scientists and international organisations to realise that trust cannot be taken for granted. History shows, however, that trust can be restored.
After major scandals, some news organisations have rebuilt their reputations through transparent corrections and rigorous editorial reforms. In the financial sector, new regulations and strengthened oversight after the global financial crisis eventually helped renew public confidence in banks. In public health, clear and consistent communication by authorities during disease outbreaks has helped communities regain trust in official guidance.
These examples demonstrate that trust, once shaken, can be rebuilt through honest actions and persistent commitment. It has to be earned, kept safe and constantly renewed, one day at a time and with each decision.
Trust is achieved through a large number of everyday acts of integrity—such as keeping a promise when nobody is looking, checking a fact before publishing it, admitting a mistake before it is discovered, making a judgment without fear or favour, and fulfilling a promise even when it becomes inconvenient. Although these actions may appear to be minor, together they build the pathway from suspicion to confidence and from the previous credibility gap to the current credibility shock.
Conclusion: The Battle for Believability
Hannah Arendt said that if people always lie to you, the result is not that you believe the lies, but that no one believes anything at all.
What Arendt warned about applies to the danger we now face: it is not that every lie will be believed, but that truth itself may cease to have the power to persuade. The previous ‘credibility gap’ was a phenomenon of an era marked by distrust of government. Nowadays, the fight over believability has expanded to become a struggle concerning whether evidence, institutions and democratic life can still be based on a common reality.
Which is why credibility has now become a form of strategic power: if it is lacking, then people turn back into suspicion, leaders cease to have authority, markets slow down, and true evidence becomes more easily dismissed; but when it is present, societies can differ strongly without losing the common ground they have.
The solution cannot be found merely through technological means. Although such tools can reveal deception and confirm the authenticity of records, they are unable to make institutions deserving of our trust. That responsibility lies with leaders who uphold the truth, with journalists who check the facts before spreading them, with courts that protect the record, with companies that opt for honesty, and with citizens who reject cynicism.
The call to action is straightforward and addresses each of us personally: before we ask people to believe in something, we must earn that belief; before we share information, we must verify it; and before we give in to doubt, we must rebuild the habits which make the truth visible, credible, and impossible to ignore.
About Ramesh Jaura
Ramesh Jaura is a journalist with 60 years of experience as a freelancer, head of Inter Press Service, and founder-editor of IDN-InDepthNews. His work draws on field reporting and coverage of international conferences and events.
View all posts by Ramesh Jaura →
August 6, 2026
By Ramesh Jaura
Key Takeaways:
The deepest challenge of the AI age is not the ease of producing lies, but the growing difficulty of believing truth itself as synthetic media erodes confidence in evidence, institutions and shared reality.
Credibility has become a form of strategic power: when trust collapses, democratic cooperation, markets, diplomacy and even basic public decision-making become fragile.
Technology alone cannot restore trust; it must be rebuilt through institutional integrity, transparent corrections, independent verification, and everyday civic habits of checking and accountability.
The most serious problem of the AI age might not lie in the ease with which lies can be produced, but in the increasing difficulty of believing in the truth. When a voter hears a familiar voice in a piece of footage, they pause for thought. A parent seeing a disturbing picture on their phone begins to question whether or not to pass it on. A journalist who receives a recording must now begin by wondering if it is genuine.
Ordinary people scrolling through social media are confronted with viral videos that may be digitally altered or entirely fabricated. Friends send each other photos in group chats that look real but could easily have been made by an app. Even a neighbour’s message in a local WhatsApp group can spark debate over whether the evidence it contains can be trusted.
The traditional ‘credibility gap’ revealed a loss of trust in government; today’s crisis is more severe since it is the same kind of system intended to determine what is real that is now itself being doubted.
It’s a struggle to achieve believability. In an age characterised by artificial intelligence, digital fragmentation and geopolitical rivalry, credibility is no longer a mere virtue; it is the capacity to make evidence count, to make institutions believable and to make the truth persuasive.
The contest is no longer limited to a single government, conflict, or controversy; all governments, journalists, scientists, businesses, financial markets and international organisations have to meet the same challenge – that of staying believable in a world which has been taught to doubt them.
The main issue is a strategic one—when information can be fabricated, authority can be challenged and shared reality is no longer assumed, who can make the truth credible?
The origins of this situation go deeper than any one technology; each communications revolution has always disturbed existing authority—the printing press altered religion and politics, radio brought propaganda into the homes of millions, television changed the way wars and leaders were judged. The internet promised to democratise knowledge on a scale which had never before been imaginable.
The latest development in that story is artificial intelligence, even though it is not the starting point. Political polarisation began long before social media and propaganda became available through digital technology. What has changed is the speed, the extent and the sophistication now available in the creation, distribution and manipulation of information.
Throughout most of the twentieth century nations mainly competed in terms of their military strength and economic power. Nowadays they also compete in the areas of technology, innovation, data and access to vital resources. In a world in which falsehoods can be made believable, one asset has now become just as important: the ability to make the truth identifiable.
Trust: The Invisible Infrastructure of Civilisation
Trust and believability are closely connected, but they are not identical. Trust is the social situation which enables individuals, markets and institutions to function without having to be constantly suspicious. Credibility is the ability to earn that trust by means of competence, honesty, consistency and accountability. The first is the atmosphere that makes cooperation possible; the second is the discipline which maintains it.
If people have a great deal of trust, they hardly notice it; but when trust is gone, everyday life becomes much more fragile. People go to banks to avoid the risk of their savings being lost. Patients often doubt the medical advice they are given. Parents ask themselves if schools, courts or officials will treat them fairly.
Democracies rely on the belief that elections will be respected, that courts will retain their authority and that constitutional rules will endure even when political circumstances are disappointing. International cooperation is based on the idea that assurances made between nations have meaning beyond immediate convenience.
It is becoming more difficult to maintain that foundation. The OECD’s 2024 Trust Survey collected just under 60,000 responses from 30 OECD countries and showed that low or no trust in national governments exceeded high or moderately high trust. The Edelman Trust Barometer 2026 predicts a move towards insularity, as seven out of ten respondents were hesitant to trust people different from themselves. The Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2026states that the average level of trust in the news is 37 per cent. It reveals that online platforms have overtaken television and news organisations’ own websites and apps as the main sources of global news.
Taken together, these numbers suggest that a large share of people in democracies now approach not only institutions but also each other with caution and scepticism. This decline in trust can make daily cooperation more difficult, fuel division within societies, and weaken the sense of common ground that democracies rely on to function. Although these are different measures, they all indicate that shared confidence is declining.
Civilisation’s quiet structure doesn’t lead to collapse all at once; the roads stay open, trading in the markets goes on, and governments carry on with their work. Yet underneath the surface, uncertainty increases, people take more care in making decisions, and cooperation becomes more difficult. The digital age didn’t cause this vulnerability, but it has made the vulnerability more visible and more difficult to control.
From the Information Age to the Age of Doubt
Hannah Arendt, in The Origins of Totalitarianism, states that the ideal subject for totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but rather people for whom the difference between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
As the internet shifted from being a symbol of democratic potential to becoming the main information system, its vulnerability became more apparent. Towards the end of the twentieth century, it was associated with a strong sense of hope—the idea that knowledge would be available to anyone who had a computer and, subsequently, a mobile phone. It brought about changes in the field of education, enabled a level of collaboration in scientific research never before seen, allowed small businesses to enter global markets and enabled ordinary people to act as eyewitnesses to wars, disasters and abuses. There had never been a time when so many people had gained access to such a large amount of information so rapidly.
Yet all communication revolutions involve contradictions; the printing press increased the amount of knowledge while at the same time causing religious disputes; radio linked together the different nations although it also helped spread propaganda; television brought the wars that took place far away into people’s homes while at the same time altering the public’s judgement of leaders. The internet was no exception. It had the effect of making communication more democratic, but it also diminished the gatekeepers who had previously helped to distinguish verified information from speculation.
It soon became clear to web platforms that outrage spread more quickly than moderation, that certainty transmitted more rapidly than nuance, and that emotion generated more engagement than careful analysis. Although the algorithms had not been created to strengthen or weaken democracy, they had been designed to hold people’s attention. Yet inevitably they started to reward the kind of content most likely to provoke an emotional response.
The results are real. According to the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2026, social media and video platforms are currently on average more popular worldwide than either television or the publishers’ own websites and apps when it comes to sourcing news. The report also notes growing concern about online misinformation and a growing number of experiments with AI chatbots as a way of accessing news. This change goes beyond a simple technological shift; it alters who serves as the mediator of public reality.
The change is deep-seated. In most of the twentieth century, democratic societies vigorously debated public policy while at the same time possessing a generally shared understanding of the facts. Newspapers of record, public broadcasters, universities and scientific institutions offered a common starting point against which disagreement could arise. Nowadays it is more difficult to find that common ground: people no longer disagree merely about solutions; instead, they are increasingly in disagreement about reality itself.
Arendt’s warning has gained increased strength; when competing accounts have more influence than verifiable evidence, public debate changes from being about conflicting ideas to being about conflicting realities.
The challenge currently facing us is therefore greater than the problem of misinformation; it represents a crisis of public confidence which extends to ordinary judgments. Before citizens, officials or journalists can discuss what a photograph, a recording or a document means, they now have to consider first whether it even exists as evidence. The Information Age had promised access to knowledge; the challenge we now face is maintaining confidence in that knowledge. It was at that moment that artificial intelligence appeared with a new ability: not only to distribute information but also to produce convincing versions of reality.Subscribe
Artificial Intelligence and the End of Authenticity
The new capacity represents a decisive break. However, artificial intelligence is frequently compared to the printing press, electricity, or the internet; it is, in one important respect, different, since the previous revolutions altered the way in which information travelled, while AI is altering the way in which information is created.
For centuries, people thought that photographs, recordings and videos had at least some link with reality; although the images could be altered, fabrication generally needed skill, time and resources.
Machines are now able to produce articles, photographs, voices, and videos that have no real-life equivalent. Synthetic content is becoming less expensive, quicker to produce, and ever more difficult to tell apart from genuine material.
The potential is huge: artificial intelligence can speed up medical discoveries, analyse large datasets, improve crop management, provide personalised learning, and make public services more responsive.
For example, AI has been used to rapidly identify potential drug therapies and vaccine targets by analysing genetic information, helping researchers respond more quickly during public health emergencies.
In agriculture, AI-driven analysis of satellite imagery allows farmers to predict weather patterns better and optimise fertiliser use, resulting in higher yields and less environmental impact.
In education, adaptive learning platforms powered by AI provide students with tailored lesson plans, addressing individual strengths and weaknesses. Public agencies now deploy AI to detect fraud, streamline the delivery of social benefits, and allocate emergency resources more efficiently. At the same time, the same systems which enable discoveries can also produce deception at an unprecedented speed and on an unprecedented scale.
The legal scholars Danielle Citron and Robert Chesney refer to this effect as the “liar’s dividend”. When it comes to fabricated pictures, recordings and videos, it becomes all the easier to dismiss genuine evidence: an authentic recording can be claimed to be fake, a real photograph can be described as having been produced by AI, and the possibility of manipulation can be used as a defence against accountability.
The dangers are already tangible. A judge could be required to decide if a recording is genuine before the case goes ahead. An election official might have only a few hours in which to reassure voters that a widely circulated clip is not true. A family could come across a forged image before any correction gets to them. Markets can react to false statements, and diplomats or military commanders may have to deal with altered communications during crises.
The common information space was already weakened by political polarisation, declining confidence in public authorities, fragmented media ecosystems and geopolitical rivalry before generative AI appeared. Artificial intelligence is not the source of the crisis; it is an accelerator that increases pressure on democratic institutions and on society’s ability to tell evidence apart from manipulation.
It cannot rely solely on technology. Governments should set up rules which safeguard innovation without reducing freedom; technology companies should agree to greater transparency; journalists should have more robust methods of authentication; and schools should teach critical judgement as a civic skill.
At the same time, individuals play a crucial role in defending the truth and protecting the integrity of public life. Simple steps can make a difference: fact-check information before sharing it, support trustworthy journalism through subscriptions or donations, engage in respectful dialogue rather than spreading outrage, and teach younger generations how to question images or claims they encounter online.
By making informed choices about what we share and support, ordinary citizens can help rebuild a culture of credibility from the ground up. Nevertheless, all of these solutions raise a more basic democratic question – whether free societies can maintain confidence in the institutions responsible for distinguishing evidence from manipulation.
Democratic Governance and the Public Record
Democracy has always been without the need for everyone to agree; in fact, it is strong because it can take into account differing opinions, competing interests and lively public discussion. At the same time, it does need certain limits—such as the assurance that votes are actually counted, that the courts interpret the law on their own, that official records are genuine, and that governments can be made accountable for both what they say and what they do.
The problem that today’s democracies are facing is not merely polarisation or the spread of misinformation. In the past, democracies have endured intense division, and rumour, propaganda and conspiracy theories have always been part of politics. What is different now is the increasing fragility of a shared public record—whether votes, court documents, official statements, photographs and recordings can still be regarded as evidence across political divides.
The effects can be seen in all aspects of democratic life. A voter might question if a campaign recording is authentic. A patient might put off acting on public health advice. A citizen might wonder if other people will accept the outcome of an election or an official statement. Courts, journalists, and election authorities have to authenticate digital evidence more and more before they can act on it responsibly.
As a result, democratic politics changes, since compromise grows more difficult because compromise requires a common understanding of the problem. Public faith diminishes when all the institutions are seen through a partisan viewpoint, and even when policies are a success, they fail to gain legitimacy if large parts of society reject the evidence that supports them.
It cannot be solved merely by technological means. Algorithms are unable to win back the public’s confidence, and no software can reconstruct democratic legitimacy. These responsibilities belong to political leaders, to independent courts, to responsible journalism, to universities, to the electoral authorities and, in the end, to the citizens themselves.
The credibility shock therefore extends well beyond the digital world and has an impact on the relationship between governments and the people under them. Democracy’s strength has never been judged merely by the number of elections it conducts or by the amount of legislation it enacts; rather, it is determined by the degree of confidence that citizens place in the institutions which govern public life.
The same reasoning applies across national boundaries. The international order rests on governments’ belief that agreements mean something, on organisations being regarded as legitimate and on alliances being able to withstand changes in government. Once credibility has declined at home, it eventually alters the relations between countries, turning a domestic crisis of confidence into a strategic issue.
Credibility as Strategic Power
When viewed in this way, credibility is not merely a moral attribute but a kind of power. Together with soldiers, ships, aircraft, industrial output, technology, cyber capabilities, and control of critical resources, nations have for ever depended on a more invisible resource — whether or not others believe their promises, warnings, and institutions.
Countries which keep their promises can borrow more readily, negotiate with greater confidence, attract students and investment, and gain more respect for their courts and institutions. None of these benefits can be forced upon them; they all have to be earned.
It is now obvious that this situation exists because of the recent crises. The pandemic caused by COVID-19 demonstrated that public health relies on people’s confidence in scientific advice. Market stability can be disrupted when official information is doubted. Today’s wars are fought not only over territory but also over competing narratives, images, videos and digital evidence.
States therefore do not merely demonstrate their capabilities but also work to ensure that others regard certain things as reliable; to achieve influence, they finance narratives, safeguard their information systems, and combat disinformation because the trustworthiness of their institutions, commitments, and evidence is essential.
While military power can be accumulated in this way, credibility cannot. It must be restored by keeping one’s promises, making clear decisions, correcting mistakes and taking responsibility when power is misused. It can endure errors if honest institutions admit them and make the necessary repairs, but it cannot indefinitely endure a continuous decline in public confidence.
This gives democracies a special problem. Since open societies rely on transparency, on close examination, and on free discussion, these advantages can be exploited by well-organised campaigns aimed at spreading doubt and causing division. The solution is not censorship nor a return to the media era of old; instead it lies in improved performance by institutions—meaning governments that make their decisions clear, journalists who check things before publishing, scientists who allow their evidence to be tested, and international organisations that show themselves to be fair, capable and consistent.
Power, technological capability and economic strength still play a role. However, in a world in which information is itself disputed, credibility now decides whether power can be exercised effectively and whether leadership can win trust rather than provoke suspicion. The strategic question thus once again becomes a civic one: how is trust to be restored after it has been weakened?
Renewing Trust: The Credibility Imperative
History provides a cautious kind of comfort. In the past, societies have had to cope with great uncertainty and have managed to recover. The Industrial Revolution caused governments to reconsider questions of labour, education and public health; the destruction caused by the world wars led to the creation of new institutions; and the internet changed the way people communicate. In each case there was disruption, but societies were able to adapt whenever the institutions changed.
Renewal cannot result merely from technological advances. Nothing whatsoever can rebuild confidence in a government that is not trusted; no algorithm can take the place of independent journalism, and no watermark can make up for institutions that are not transparent, accountable and truthful.
Credibility is enhanced by governments acknowledging their errors, giving honest explanations of difficult decisions, and taking responsibility. Journalists gain the trust of the public through being fair, accurate and by making corrections. Scientists can keep their authority because their conclusions remain open to being examined and revised.
The situation is clear-cut: the credibility blow could serve to increase the public’s lack of trust and lead to even greater societal division, or it could prompt governments, journalists, teachers, scientists and international organisations to realise that trust cannot be taken for granted. History shows, however, that trust can be restored.
After major scandals, some news organisations have rebuilt their reputations through transparent corrections and rigorous editorial reforms. In the financial sector, new regulations and strengthened oversight after the global financial crisis eventually helped renew public confidence in banks. In public health, clear and consistent communication by authorities during disease outbreaks has helped communities regain trust in official guidance.
These examples demonstrate that trust, once shaken, can be rebuilt through honest actions and persistent commitment. It has to be earned, kept safe and constantly renewed, one day at a time and with each decision.
Trust is achieved through a large number of everyday acts of integrity—such as keeping a promise when nobody is looking, checking a fact before publishing it, admitting a mistake before it is discovered, making a judgment without fear or favour, and fulfilling a promise even when it becomes inconvenient. Although these actions may appear to be minor, together they build the pathway from suspicion to confidence and from the previous credibility gap to the current credibility shock.
Conclusion: The Battle for Believability
Hannah Arendt said that if people always lie to you, the result is not that you believe the lies, but that no one believes anything at all.
What Arendt warned about applies to the danger we now face: it is not that every lie will be believed, but that truth itself may cease to have the power to persuade. The previous ‘credibility gap’ was a phenomenon of an era marked by distrust of government. Nowadays, the fight over believability has expanded to become a struggle concerning whether evidence, institutions and democratic life can still be based on a common reality.
Which is why credibility has now become a form of strategic power: if it is lacking, then people turn back into suspicion, leaders cease to have authority, markets slow down, and true evidence becomes more easily dismissed; but when it is present, societies can differ strongly without losing the common ground they have.
The solution cannot be found merely through technological means. Although such tools can reveal deception and confirm the authenticity of records, they are unable to make institutions deserving of our trust. That responsibility lies with leaders who uphold the truth, with journalists who check the facts before spreading them, with courts that protect the record, with companies that opt for honesty, and with citizens who reject cynicism.
The call to action is straightforward and addresses each of us personally: before we ask people to believe in something, we must earn that belief; before we share information, we must verify it; and before we give in to doubt, we must rebuild the habits which make the truth visible, credible, and impossible to ignore.
About Ramesh Jaura
Ramesh Jaura is a journalist with 60 years of experience as a freelancer, head of Inter Press Service, and founder-editor of IDN-InDepthNews. His work draws on field reporting and coverage of international conferences and events.
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