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In an age of perfect simulations, truth wavers and myth returns. Communicating today means guarding the boundary between reality and fiction, and building trust through authentic, consistent and verifiable narratives.
We live in a time when generative artificial intelligence produces content so realistic that it can confuse even the most attentive observers. This is no longer a hypothetical future. Concrete cases are already appearing across the news, politics, the digital world and pop culture.
In Italy, in July 2024, the Bank of Italy reported that a deepfake video was circulating. The video falsely reproduced the image and voice of Governor Fabio Panetta in order to promote fraudulent content. The Bank categorically denied that the video was authentic and urged citizens not to share it, pointing to a new level of sophistication in digital scams.
Also in Italy, several prominent business leaders, including Armani, Moratti, Tronchetti Provera and Della Valle, received phone calls from a cloned voice of Defence Minister Guido Crosetto. The voice asked for million-euro transfers as alleged ransoms for kidnapped journalists. Some of the victims believed they were helping with an official request from the State and transferred large sums. After a thorough investigation by the Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Carabinieri managed to block the transfer of funds. Other episodes reinforce the idea that we are already immersed in an information ecosystem where the real and the artificial blur together. One example involved Azione leader Carlo Calenda, who was shown in a manipulated video promoting fake investments.
Nicholas Carr writes about technology and its impact on society. In his article What Happens When AI-Generated Lies Are More Compelling than the Truth?, he reminds us that image manipulation is nothing new. As far back as Abraham Lincoln’s time, photographs were retouched for political purposes.
Today, generative AI marks a significant shift. Manipulation is no longer slow and handcrafted. It is industrial, immediate and available to anyone on an exponential scale. In this context, Walter Benjamin’s reflection in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction becomes relevant again. Benjamin argued that mechanical reproduction could dissolve the “aura” of the original. Today the concept feels strikingly current, because the aura at stake is no longer only that of the work of art but that of reality itself. Generative AI does not merely replicate; it creates. In this automated and continuous production of content, what is authentic loses prominence, and what is synthetically plausible takes centre stage. As a result, the sense of uniqueness, meaning the link between object, context and origin, crumbles. In this scenario, information is no longer a reflection of reality but a competitive product optimised for engagement. This is where communication’s guiding value shifts from truth to plausibility.
With generative AI, then, we have moved further still. Content is no longer only replicated. Autonomous, plausible simulations are generated with no original to start from. The work, whether a face, a voice or a statement, is not “copied” but invented. And just as Benjamin feared, in this algorithmic seriality we risk losing the very meaning of authenticity.
The issue is no longer distorting reality. It is replacing reality with a plausible alternative version, designed to be believable before it can be verified. Here lies what Simone de Beauvoir might call the radical ambiguity of the human condition: believing means exposing oneself, but today even doubt can be manipulated. What is at stake is not only truth but collective trust. If everything can seem plausible, then even what is true risks losing its authority. This is the deeper crisis: a systemic erosion of our ability to recognise reality and, even more, to believe in it.
To accompany this reflection on generative AI and its impact on communication, we ran a small experiment with ChatGPT. We paired some classical myths with contemporary technological phenomena and let the ancient stories help us read the challenges of the present, with symbolic depth and a touch of irony.
Here is the result: five archetypes, five interpretations and five prompts for thinking differently about the digital reality we inhabit every day.
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Deepfakes: an epochal rupture
Deepfakes are not just a technological development. They are a genuine epistemological rupture. They are generated from nothing, with an accuracy that perfectly imitates reality. In a world where communication happens mainly through images, their impact is deeply destabilising.
The term deepfake refers to a set of AI-based technologies that can manipulate or generate false but extremely realistic audiovisual content. They vary in type and degree. At one end are simple manipulations of existing videos, for example replacing a person’s face or voice. At the other is the generation of entirely synthetic videos from scratch, starting from nothing more than a text prompt or a few short reference clips.
Recent examples show their impact. Fake videos of Tom Cruise flooded TikTok, and in 2024 explicit content was generated using Taylor Swift’s image, forcing platforms to restrict even searches for her name. In Italy too, automated campaigns using bots and artificial intelligence have distorted online debate during international crises and election campaigns.
As Nicholas Carr writes: “History and psychology both suggest that, in politics as in art, generative AI will succeed in fulfilling the highest aspiration of its creators: to make the virtual feel more authentic than the real.” This is the turning point: the virtual does not merely compete with the real; it often surpasses it in emotional intensity, perceived credibility and ability to spread.
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From credulity to cynicism: the risk to democracy
The most immediate risk of AI-generated content is the spread of disinformation. The deeper risk is cynicism. Carr writes: “We’ll go from a world where our bias was to take everything as evidence to one where our bias is to take nothing as evidence.” There is a real possibility of moving from a credulous society to a completely disillusioned one, where truth is not only hard to find but stops mattering at all.
This weakens the cognitive and cultural foundations of democracy. Without trust, there is no room for rational debate, and authoritarian narratives thrive in that vacuum. As Bobby Chesney and Danielle Citron observe, the erosion of trust benefits those who manipulate reality to consolidate power. Carr is blunt: “As truth decays, so too will trust.”
The return of myth in the digital age
In his essay on artificial intelligence, Yuval Noah Harari warns that we are delegating the narration of reality to systems that do not understand the world but simulate it with surgical precision. Where stories once served to unite communities around shared values, today they risk becoming sophisticated tools for fragmenting them. “Artificial intelligence does not understand truth,” Harari notes, “but it can persuade human beings to believe any version of it.” The risk is not only the lie itself but the loss of the desire to distinguish between true and false. In an information ecosystem dominated by tailor-made content, truth loses its competitive value. What wins is what moves, confirms and consoles us. And trust, the invisible but vital infrastructure of democracy, dissolves.
Building reputation in the age of digital myth
This erosion also affects the reputation of companies and public figures, making any effort to build an identity fragile in the age of generative AI. For communicators, the lesson is urgent: if AI can generate endless stories, it is up to us to build identities that are credible, verifiable and consistent. We need to move from a reactive logic to an anticipatory vision. In this vision, reputation management is not limited to reacting and issuing denials (crisis management). It rests on a strategic orientation and on foresight frameworks capable of anticipating scenarios. This approach strengthens what is known as trust capital: the combination of perceptions, narrative consistency and relational credibility that allows an organisation to maintain authority and continuity even during reputational crises and information overload. Only then will we be able to inhabit the new era of algorithmic storytelling without being overwhelmed by it.
Carr cites the case of the Book of Veles, an alleged ancient manuscript published in 1957 that told stories of the Slavic god Veles. Although it was exposed as a forgery, the text gained a following among neo-pagan and nationalist groups. This shows how myths, more than facts, can capture the collective imagination, especially in times of information overload. Marshall McLuhan foresaw this: “When man is overwhelmed by information, he resorts to myth.” In other words, when human beings are flooded with too much information, they stop looking for truth in facts and take refuge in symbolic, reassuring narratives.
As we have seen, in the age of generative AI these narratives find a formidable ally in the ability to create perfectly plausible images, videos and texts. Even when false, these feed our fears and confirm our prejudices. Carr adds: “Myth Making, more than truth seeking, is what seems likely to define the future of media and of the public square.” Carr suggests that in the age of generative AI, the aim of communication is no longer to seek objective truth. Instead, it is to build narratives that resonate emotionally, culturally or politically with audiences. In this view, the media of the future will not be spaces for establishing facts but for circulating persuasive stories, regardless of whether they are true.
The result is a radical transformation of the “public sphere”: from a forum for evidence-based debate into a theatre of symbolic representation, where whoever builds the most convincing narrative wins.
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Strategic implications for public affairs and corporate communication professionals
For those working in strategic communication, the challenge is clear: defending authenticity at a time when fiction is scalable. This requires a cultural shift even before an operational one.
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A challenge for the future
Generative artificial intelligence is not only a technological advance. It is a transformation of the way we think, communicate and construct reality. In an age when the plausible can outrank the true in perceived authority, the task of communicators, policymakers and citizens is to restore value to verification, discernment and consistency. Trust becomes the new strategic ground on which reputation, democracy and social responsibility are decided. Meeting this challenge requires vision, awareness and collaboration between public and private actors, between those who regulate and those who communicate. It is no longer just a matter of debunking deception, but of building an alternative narrative grounded in authenticity, expertise and transparency. Only then can we continue to inhabit the public sphere with clarity and integrity.
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The question remains open: will we be able to hold the ground of reality, or will we simply chase perfectly packaged but dangerously empty myths?
To learn more, read Nicholas Carr’s original article in Behavioral Scientist: “What Happens When AI-Generated Lies Are More Compelling than the Truth?”
Senior Corporate Communication & Digital Lobbying Strategist presso Adl Consulting