Our Dishonesty Crises: How Technology is Eroding Honesty

Dishonesty has always been with us. But in recent years new technology has led to a variety of dishonesty crises, in which being dishonest is easier and more tempting than it has ever been in the past. We will look closely at three examples. In the first, deepfake videos which represent people saying and doing things they never did, are becoming easier to make and harder to detect, with implications for everything from our elections to the war between Ukraine and Russia. In the second, it has become easier than ever to become a celebrity due to TikTok and other forms of social media, but that also increases the threat of dishonest behavior. In the third, professors are drowning in a wave of academic cheating by students using ChatGPT and other AI. All is not lost, however, as we will also see some practical strategies to help us resist these…