So please speak loud and clear
cause Im listenin
I need to know that Youre real
cause Im strugglin
Are You Real? – KJ-52
Jonah Kirsten Sorrentino is better known by his stage name, KJ-52. Originally from Tampa, Sorrentino began his journey as a Christian hip hop musician in the early 1990s, but it wasnt until 1997 that he made his debut record. Almost immediately, people picked up on his distinct rap cadence and tone, comparing him to rapper Eminem, who was exploding onto the scene at the time.
KJ-52 has won three Dove Awards for the Rap/Hip Hop Album of the Year, including the album containing this song, Behind the Musik (A Boy Named Jonah). The song is a retrospective look at Sorrentinos own struggle in his faith before he turned to God and expresses that right then everything began to change. KJ-52 joined with Christian rock band Kutless on the song, and it received heavy airplay upon its release and was nominated for a Dove Award.
The lyrics beg of a higher power to do something to show that He is real as the lyricist struggles through difficult relationships at home, at school, and in the world.
When we look for what is real, what is true, it typically requires a deeper examination of what is placed in front of us. We can simply accept things on face value, but in a world with expanding abilities to deceive, that can lead us to be fooled or tricked.
That was true long before artificial intelligence (AI) came around, but AI has taken things to a whole new level. While many are working on ways to ethically and productively embrace the technology, bad actors are having a heyday with the lack of regulation in the industry right now.
And its scary.
Heartland residents have reported scam phone calls that sound like their children or grandchildren on the phone, attempting to get money through scamming. Its not actually children or grandchildren, its AI being used with the slightest bit of someones recorded voice available on the internet, turning it into a potential way to manipulate family members and/or friends over the phone.
The Epstein files have become a significant political football, and were not going to get into the files themselves in this column, but the controversy around them has spawned hosts of AI-generated images that have been spread across social media based on which side of the political aisle you support. Fake photos depicting President Trump dancing with a very obviously underage young woman are spread by one side while the other side shares an AI-generated photo of Bill Clinton lounging at a beach with Epstein and an obviously underage young woman.
A social media researcher doing her doctoral work with Duke University was recently on a Washington Journal podcast that I enjoy. She spent a week reviewing volunteers social media feeds and the images posted on them. Her findings were that between 85-90 percent of all non-personal photos (in other words, photos not directly taken by the person sharing them) in that week had AI manipulation.
Recent floods in multiple places across the country led to a slew of AI-generated videos popping up on Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), and TikTok showing massive devastation and even people being drug into the water. Those videos generated hundreds of thousands of views, preying on our human curiosity to see what happened in a tragic event, but hundreds of the flooding videos were computer-generated and not real at all.
As a father of young girls, what I have found most disturbing is the technology to create AI-generated pornographic images of people, without their consent. No, youre not going to get most of the widely available AI software systems, such as Chat GPT, to generate nudity, but many pieces of AI software have been put out as open source software, meaning anyone can look at the coding underneath the software, and there are places on the internet where you can purchase software to do nefarious things well beyond anything Photoshop ever dreamed of doing.
Should we just throw our hands up and not trust anyone in this world of increasingly fake or altered presentations of reality around us?
Not at all. In fact, the responsibility for how we respond to this exploding industry of AI is absolutely on the people.
When the big, beautiful bill was revealed to have a moratorium on any restrictions on AI for a ten-year period, the voters in this country, of all political persuasions, reached out to their Congressional representatives in such numbers that the provision was removed.
South Dakota has put a very preliminary piece of legislation on the books in this state against non-consensual pornographic images being created with AI technology, but there is so much more that needs to be considered to protect our citizenry.
More than anything, when youre scrolling and see a picture or video shared on your social media feed that quickly accesses your feelings, before blindly sharing the content, take time to do the background research to ensure youre passing on real, truthful content. If the fake stuff isnt being circulated, there wont be a market for those who choose to attempt to manipulate our feelings with fake images.
Social media can be a tremendous tool to connect, to keep in contact, and even to make money, but it also can be manipulated quite easily, so please be cautious to ensure youre not someone who is passing on whats not real.
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