Mosseri claims digital camera companies are on the wrong path.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
By Richard Lawler<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instagram boss Adam Mosseri is closing out 2025 with a 20-images-deep dive<\/a> into what a new era of \u201cinfinite synthetic content\u201d means as it all becomes harder and harder to distinguish from reality, and the old, more personal Instagram feed that he says has been \u201cdead\u201d for years. Last year, The Verge\u2019s<\/em> Sarah Jeong wrote<\/a> that \u201c…the default assumption about a photo is about to become that it\u2019s faked, because creating realistic and believable fake photos is now trivial to do,\u201d and Mosseri eventually concurs:<\/p>\n\n\n\n For most of my life I could safely assume photographs or videos were largely accurate captures of moments that happened. This is clearly no longer the case and it\u2019s going to take us years to adapt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re going to move from assuming what we see is real by default, to starting with skepticism. Paying attention to who is sharing something and why. This will be uncomfortable – we\u2019re genetically predisposed to believing our eyes.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n You can read the full text from his slideshow at the bottom of this post, but according to Mosseri, the evolution required of Instagram and other platforms is that \u201cWe need to build the best creative tools. Label AI-generated content and verify authentic content. Surface credibility signals about who\u2019s posting. Continue to improve ranking for originality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our readers and listeners know we\u2019ve spent the last few years discussing the \u201cwhat is a photo?\u201d apocalypse arriving in the form of AI image editing and generation. Now, as we hurtle into 2026, it feels a little late to lay out a thin list of proposals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mosseri\u2019s Instagram-centered view of the whole thing claims that \u201cWe like to complain about \u2018AI slop,\u2019 but there\u2019s a lot of amazing AI content,\u201d without specifically identifying any of it, or specifically mentioning Meta\u2019s push for AI tools. He claims camera companies are going the wrong way by trying to give everyone the ability to \u201clook like a pro photographer from 2015.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, he says raw, unflattering images are, temporarily, a signal of reality, until AI is able to copy imperfections too. Then \u201cwe\u2019ll need to shift our focus to who says something instead of what is being said,\u201d with fingerprints and cryptographic signing of images from the cameras that took them to ID real media instead of relying on tags and watermarks added to AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mosseri is far from the first tech exec to point toward the same issue. Samsung exec Patrick Chomet took the approach<\/a> that \u201cactually, there is no such thing as a real picture,\u201d after controversies last year over the Galaxy phones\u2019 approach to Moon photography<\/a>, and Apple\u2019s Craig Federighi told the WSJ<\/em><\/a> he\u2019s \u201cconcerned<\/a>\u201d about the impact of AI editing. But hey, maybe we\u2019re just another Instagram slideshow or two away from figuring all of this out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Adam Mosseri:<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The key risk Instagram faces is that, as the world changes more quickly, the platform fails to keep up. Looking forward to 2026, one major shift: authenticity is becoming infinitely reproducible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Everything that made creators matter-the ability to be real, to connect, to have a voice that couldn\u2019t be faked-is now accessible to anyone with the right tools. Deepfakes are getting better. Al generates photos and videos indistinguishable from captured media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Power has shifted from institutions to individuals because the internet made it so anyone with a compelling idea could find an audience. The cost of distributing information is zero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Individuals, not publishers or brands, established that there\u2019s a significant market for content from people. Trust in institutions is at an all-time low. We\u2019ve turned to self-captured content from creators we trust and admire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We like to complain about \u201cAI slop,\u201d but there\u2019s a lot of amazing AI content. Even the quality AI content has a look though: too slick, skin too smooth. That will change – we\u2019re going to see more realistic AI content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Authenticity is becoming a scarce resource, driving more demand for creator content, not less. The bar is shifting from \u201ccan you create?\u201d to \u201ccan you make something that only you could create?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unless you are under 25, you probably think of Instagram as feed of square photos: polished makeup, skin smoothing, and beautiful landscapes. That feed is dead. People stopped sharing personal moments to feed years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The primary way people share now is in DMs: blurry photos and shaky videos of daily experiences. Shoe shots. and unflattering candids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This raw aesthetic has bled into public content and across artforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The camera companies are betting on the wrong aesthetic. They\u2019re competing to make everyone look like a pro photographer from 2015. But in a world where AI can generate flawless imagery, the professional look becomes the tell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Flattering imagery is cheap to produce and boring to consume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People want content that feels real. Savvy creators are leaning into unproduced, unflattering images. In a world where everything can be perfected, imperfection becomes a signal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rawness isn\u2019t just aesthetic preference anymore \u2014 it\u2019s proof. It\u2019s defensive. A way of saying: this is real because it\u2019s imperfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Relatively quickly, AI will create any aesthetic you like, including an imperfect one that presents as authentic. At that point we\u2019ll need to shift our focus to who says something instead of what is being said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For most of my life I could safely assume photographs or videos were largely accurate captures of moments that happened. This is clearly no longer the case and it\u2019s going to take us years to adapt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re going to move from assuming what we see is real by default, to starting with skepticism. Paying attention to who is sharing something and why. This will be uncomfortable – we\u2019re genetically predisposed to believing our eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Platforms like Instagram will do good work identifying AI content, but they\u2019ll get worse at it over time as AI gets better. It will be more practical to fingerprint real media than fake media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Camera manufacturers will cryptographically sign images at capture, creating a chain of custody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Labeling is only part of the solution. We need to surface much more<\/p>\n\n\n\n context about the accounts sharing content so people can make informed decisions. Who is behind the account?<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a world of infinite abundance and infinite doubt, the creators who can maintain trust and signal authenticity – by being real, transparent, and consistent – will stand out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We need to build the best creative tools. Label AI-generated content and verify authentic content. Surface credibility signals about who\u2019s posting. Continue to improve ranking for originality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instagram is going to have to evolve in a number of ways, and fast.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This got me to thinking that all the AI slop which actually costs the AI companies a fair amount of money to produce, are meant to be part of the psyop for digital ID. When you consider that AI photos and videos could play a significant role in elections and misinformation campaigns, this will be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15141,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15140\/revisions\/15141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/chorus\/uploads\/chorus_asset\/file\/25330613\/STK419_DEEPFAKE_CVIRGINIA_E.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400\")
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