By James O’Donnell
Publication Date: 2026-02-19 16:00:00
Hany Farid, a professor at UC Berkeley who specializes in digital forensics but wasn’t involved in the Microsoft research, says that if the industry adopted the company’s blueprint, it would be meaningfully more difficult to deceive the public with manipulated content. Sophisticated individuals or governments can work to bypass such tools, he says, but the new standard could eliminate a significant portion of misleading material.
“I don’t think it solves the problem, but I think it takes a nice big chunk out of it,” he says.
Still, there are reasons to see Microsoft’s approach as an example of somewhat naïve techno-optimism. There is growing evidence that people are swayed by AI-generated content even when they know that it is false. And in a recent study of pro-Russian AI-generated videos about the war in Ukraine, comments pointing out that the videos were made with AI received far less engagement than comments treating them as genuine.
“Are there people who,…
