The truth is very hard to find today.
The role of A.I. deep fakes in almost every medium is calling into question who and what are real? Who do we believe? Who speaks for us? What is the truth? What are the lies? How purposeful is the mis/disinformation? And what can we do about it?
And if you’re in the midst of a crisis including deep fakes, not only do the old rules no longer apply, the misinformation can turn the situation toxic. Our crisis playbooks need to be totally rewritten.
Nothing showcases this better than the most recent CEO scandal, involving a Coldplay concert, a “kiss cam” broadcast on the Gillette stadium jumbotron, and two senior executives of an enigmatic company named “Astronomer” caught in an embarrassing romantic embrace. It was the hug seen around and around the world.
But far worse was what the scandal brought out in us
As the two participants frantically turned away, wisely declining to be seen or heard from again, a legion of stand-ins came out of the woodwork to take their place. Deep fakes almost all, these constructs purported to be a TV news anchor, the disgraced CEO himself, his wife, his sons and his “daughter.” But, it turns out, the CEO doesn’t even HAVE a daughter. And the others never posted. The posts were all fake, but when issued over social media, the statements were believable, if a bit exploitative and overblown. And they prolonged and deepened the arc of the crisis.
See the Youtube video above to see the incident itself, followed by CEO Andy Byron’s ostensible public statement issued over social media. That statement was a total fake, posted by a fake “CBS news anchor,” yet it made its way onto Fox News, and around the world. One CEO I work with told me that he had read all of these statements, and believed each one.
Then, in an attempt to flatten the arc, and quell the crisis, the new interim CEO of Astronomer hired actor Ryan Reynolds’ inventive marketing firm, Maximum Effort. They somehow chose to produce a minute-long video, posted on YouTube, with tongue firmly in cheek. It features very “temporary spokesperson” Gwyneth Paltrow saying basically, let me have your attention: Enough about the kiss cam, let’s get back to the nuts and bolts of this business; let’s get back to work. And to its credit, though odd, the video worked pretty well to defuse the situation.
Ironically, though, many people thought it was Ms. Paltrow who was the deep fake.
But she turned out to be real.
Who Said What When
By the time the deep fakes were discovered, Byron had resigned, the head of HR as well, and Paltrow/Reynolds had recast the discussion just enough to get the monkeys off everyone’s backs. But, though Paltrow cut through the ridiculousness, this kind of response would not work in most crises, and could backfire badly.
By now, two weeks after the event, well over 100 million people around the world have heard, or read of the scandal, and in one day, more than 22,000 news articles were written on Astronomer, says Axios, quoting Muck Rack, even if they don’t really understand what the company in question does.
What we do know is that A.I., and deep fakes, have completely changed the game in crisis management. Just as ChatGPT has made many corporate communicators redundant, a whole new paradigm is emerging for crisis participants.
From Garden Variety to Ballistic
In fact, CEO dalliances with their subordinates are a fairly garden variety of corporate crisis. In my practice we’ve handled tens, twenties or more of them over the years. And while each situation can be quite different, there is an established play book for how the board and remaining management can handle such private tragedies with a minimum of public exposure or damage.
The goal would always be to get it all over with as quickly, fairly, compassionately and gracefully as possible. To that end, the Astronomer Board’s statements were pretty much on target. (See my article on The Role Of Boards in Crisis: 10 Steps for Directors Before, During And After Crisis.)
However, because they were so late in coming, that left lots of time for false rumors to sweep the internet. (See You Have 15 Minutes to Respond to a Crisis: A Checklist of Dos and Don’ts) And given the momentum of the crisis, the Board’s statement was probably necessary but not sufficient.
So, What Are We To Do?
With all the uncertainty floating around these days, every day can seem like a crisis, and aggregated, it can seem more like chaos. (See my article on “Chaos Leadership: When Does Global Crisis Turn Into Chaos And How Do We Survive It?”)
The New York Times has given us a quiz to find out how well we can tell what is fake and what is real all on our own…(to take it, go to: A.I. videos have never been better. Can you tell what’s real?) Unsurprisingly, it’s really hard to do, and I haven’t found one person yet who has gotten all ten right. And that’s very scary indeed.
As for this moment, while new playbooks are being created, authentication is the magic word. There are several organizations that fact-check journalists and their articles, posts and videos, and verify those they find to be real/true. Snopes is the undeniable leader of the field. Founded in 1994, it started by investigating urban legends, hoaxes and folklore. Today it is a terrific source of insight on what is a deep fake, and what’s real, as well as what is true and what is false in public statements and rumors of all kinds.
Other more specialized fact-checking organizations include: Pulitzer Prize winning Politifact.com; FactCheck.org; OpenSecrets.org; and iflscience.com.
All of these organizations are go-to resources to verify/authenticate articles, videos, claims, science, and political rhetoric. In fact, we should all have a little fact-checking engine sitting on our shoulders as we live our lives, clueing us in to what is true, and what is baloney. That would be a truly innovative solution for an issue that appears to be getting more and more intractable.