Areas of Common Ground
Despite partisan divides, most Americans agree on these key points:
- ✓It's becoming impossible to know what's real online
- ✓AI-generated misinformation poses serious threats to democracy
- ✓Social media companies should do more to combat fake content
+ 7 more areas of agreement below
What's the Challenge?
Artificial intelligence has created a crisis of trust in information. AI-generated images, videos, and text are now indistinguishable from reality. Deepfake technology can put anyone's face on anyone's body, make politicians say things they never said, and create entirely fabricated 'evidence' of events that never happened. Meanwhile, AI-powered bots flood social media with propaganda, and sophisticated algorithms manipulate what information you see. The result: it's increasingly difficult to know what's real and what's fake online. This threatens democracy itself—when citizens can't agree on basic facts, self-governance becomes impossible.
Where Most Americans Agree
It's becoming impossible to know what's real online
AI-generated misinformation poses serious threats to democracy
Social media companies should do more to combat fake content
Deepfake technology is dangerous and should have guardrails
Children are especially vulnerable to AI-generated manipulation
Foreign adversaries are using AI to spread propaganda and division
Journalists and fact-checkers face an impossible task against AI-generated content
The speed of AI advancement has outpaced our ability to regulate it
We need better tools to verify what's authentic
This problem will only get worse without action
Source: Pew Research Center 2024, AI Trust Survey
Current Perspectives from Both Sides
Understanding the full debate requires hearing what each side actually argues—not caricatures or strawmen.
Progressive Perspective
- •Tech companies prioritized profit over truth and enabled this crisis
- •AI is amplifying existing problems of disinformation and hate speech
- •Unregulated AI threatens marginalized communities who are targeted by deepfakes
- •We need strong government regulation of AI development and deployment
- •AI-generated misinformation undermines climate science and public health
- •Big Tech's AI tools are being used to manipulate elections and suppress votes
Conservative Perspective
- •Mainstream media already spreads misinformation—AI just makes it more obvious
- •Government regulation of AI will be used to censor conservative speech
- •Big Tech companies use 'fact-checking' to suppress conservative viewpoints
- •The real problem is lack of media literacy, not AI technology itself
- •Free market and technology innovation will solve these problems better than regulation
- •Government can't be trusted to determine what's true or false
These represent current talking points from each side of the political spectrum. Understanding both perspectives is essential for productive dialogue.
Evidence-Based Facts
95% of Americans have encountered misinformation online, with 63% saying they see it regularly
Source: Pew Research Center 2024
Deepfake videos increased by 900% from 2022 to 2024
Source: Deeptrace/Sensity AI Report
80% of Americans can't reliably distinguish AI-generated images from real photos
Source: MIT Media Lab Study 2024
Foreign influence operations using AI targeted the 2024 election from Russia, China, and Iran
AI-generated scam calls and messages cost Americans over $10 billion in 2024
Source: Federal Trade Commission
Learn More
AI Incident Database
Comprehensive catalog of AI harms and incidents
Partnership on AI
NewsGuard - Misinformation Tracking
Real-time tracking of misinformation and AI-generated fake news
NewsGuard Technologies
MIT Center for Constructive Communication
Research on combating online misinformation and restoring trust
MIT
Questions for Thoughtful Debate
How do we regulate AI-generated content without enabling censorship?
Should AI-generated images and videos be required to carry watermarks or labels?
What responsibility do tech platforms have for AI-generated misinformation?
How can we teach people to be more skeptical of online content without promoting conspiracy thinking?
Should creating malicious deepfakes be a federal crime?
Can we develop technology to detect AI-generated content faster than AI can fool it?
What role should government play in determining what information is true or false?
How do we protect democracy when citizens can't agree on basic facts?