The AI Fueled Trustmageddon: When Seeing Is No Longer Believing
- H.M. Clark
- Jun 23
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 28
I really want to talk about the AI fueled trust crisis we're currently experiencing, but first I want to start off with an exercise.
And before I begin I genuinely want to ask you to pay attention to how you feel when you read each statement.
An Exercise in Trust:
1. First, I'm going to tell you I wrote this article using ChatGPT.
2. Just kidding, I wrote this with my own idiot brain.
3. Lol of course I didn't. You saw the em dash a little ways down the page, right? (Actually no, you didn't because I edited it out).
4. jkjkjkjk, I'm just messing with you… I really did write this myself.
5. Now ask yourself how you feel about what you're about to read. Good? Bad? Annoyed?
When you decide whether or not I did use generative Al tools (whether or not you believe me one way or the other), you're going to make a value judgement about the validity of my words.
If you think I wrote this with help from ChatGPT, does it make it less valid, less true? Maybe not inherently, no. But you feel that knot in your gut, don’t you? Or you might be more defensive now. Honestly, you're probably annoyed that you're having to read additional new content that may or may not be written with AI assistance and you're exhausted. (FWIW: SAME)
If you think I wrote this all on my lonesome, it doesn't make it more valid because it came out of my brain... Does it more valid because of how you feel about it?
And if you find the triggers, the buzzwords, the similar cadence of speech that sounds like ChatGPT, do you trust me less?
Welcome to Trustmageddon.

We’ve entered a new reality crisis, and it’s not theoretical. It’s not even future-tense. It’s right now. AI-generated content has reached a level of realism so convincing it doesn’t just blur the line between fact and fiction, it actively dissolves it. Tools like Veo 3, allow anyone to create high-definition, lip-synced, ambient-rich videos with natural-sounding dialogue. This isn’t experimental tech anymore. This is available via subscription ($250 a month, mind you).
In other words: We’ve democratized the potential for deception.
The same technology that empowers creatives and small businesses is also arming bad actors with the ability to produce emotionally manipulative, politically polarizing, and fact-resistant content at scale. And our brains? They’re wired for trust. We evolved to believe our eyes and ears. What we see, we assume to be real. What we hear, we rarely question. Generative AI content has the potential to exploit this with surgical precision.
This isn’t just about deepfakes. It’s about a creeping, systemic breakdown of confidence in everything we once considered verifiable. According to the 2025 Stanford AI Index, trust in AI systems is falling even as usage rises. Meanwhile, public trust in traditional media in the US is at an all-time low (Only 31% of Americans express a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in the media to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly.”)
Add to that our own psychological quirks (confirmation bias, illusory truth effect, the introspection illusion) and we’re facing what can only be described as a "cognitive vulnerability epidemic." The more synthetic content floods the ecosystem, the harder it becomes to tell signal from noise, fact from fiction, real from real-looking.
So, Hailey, that's great, but wtf are we supposed to do, you ask?
GREAT question.
First we need to address the elephant in the room: how we fundamentally feel about generative AI content. We need to acknowledge that while it's making our workload faster, it's making us judge it when we see it. We notice the tells, and when we do, we have something to say about it.
But then what?
Here’s the core habit I’m practicing every day with every emotionally charged piece of content I consume:
Pause.
Evaluate.
Verify.
Decide.
It’s not sexy. It’s not fast. But it’s powerful. It builds digital resilience (something we’re all going to need a lot more of in the days/weeks/months to come).
Because this is the quiet part we need to start saying out loud:
We are already forming opinions based not just on what’s said in the digital space if we suspect AI, but on how it feels, what it looks like, and whether or not it smells like a machine made it.
Even if you use any of these tools, have you ever seen an em dash and thought, this was written by ChatGPT? Ever spotted the word delve and quietly written the whole piece off?
That impulse? That snap judgment? That’s Trustmageddon. It’s not just about whether the content is good or even accurate; it’s about whether it passes the vibe check of human authorship. And we’re going to have to address that instinct. Because it's a fundamental thing built into our base programming as humans: to use what we see and hear to inform our choices and actions.
And here’s where it gets more complicated: we’re the same ones using these tools. Delegating ideation, drafting, summaries (and so very many ads) to AI. Yet when we see it in someone else’s writing or content, our reflex is to distrust.
That’s the paradox of adoption.
And no, we shouldn’t kill this reflex. We should study it. Understand it. Recognize it as a double standard born out of fear, power imbalance, and a real desire to stay human in a system that’s increasingly synthetic.
Because the real test isn’t who wrote it, it’s whether it holds up when you read it. Does it make sense? Does it resonate? Does it feel true? And how do we respond?
To survive Trustmageddon, we're going to have to start activating the parts of our brain that are used for critical thinking and taking an extra couple of steps to truly make up our minds.
It's sure going to be a bumpy ride.
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