Artificial Intelligence & the Erosion of Trust

How AI Is Reshaping the Information Environment Faster Than Society Is Prepared For

The most disruptive impact of artificial intelligence may not be automation.

It may be the gradual erosion of trust.

For years, public discussions surrounding AI have focused primarily on productivity, economic disruption, military modernization, and the possibility of machines replacing people in the workforce.

Those conversations matter.

Artificial intelligence is already transforming industries ranging from healthcare and finance to logistics, cybersecurity, and national defense.

But another consequence is emerging at the same time – one that may prove even more destabilizing in the long run.

Artificial Intelligence:

Why Governance, Risk, & Trust Matters

Trust: The Invisible Infrastructure of Society

Artificial intelligence is fundamentally changing how people determine what is real, what is credible, and who they can trust.

This transformation extends far beyond social media or politics. It affects national security, public safety, journalism, education, financial systems, governance, and the broader cohesion of democratic societies. Trust serves as foundational infrastructure for modern civilization, and AI is beginning to place unprecedented pressure on that foundation.

The challenge is not simply that artificial intelligence can generate convincing content. It is that the technology is evolving faster than many institutions, legal frameworks, and the people that use them are capable of adapting to.

For generations, humans relied upon relatively stable indicators of authenticity. A photograph captured a moment. A voicemail represented someone speaking. Video footage provided evidence. Written communication had identifiable human characteristics.

When Seeing Is No Longer Believing

Artificial intelligence is rapidly blurring those boundaries.

Today, AI systems can generate realistic voices, images, videos, documents, and even fully interactive online personas with increasing sophistication and speed. In many cases, the technology is already capable of producing content convincing enough to manipulate public perception, imitate people we trust, overwhelm the systems where we consume information, or create confusion during moments of crisis.

This is no longer theoretical.

The Weaponization of Trust

The FBI has repeatedly warned that criminals are increasingly using artificial intelligence to clone the voices of family members, public officials, and trusted individuals in order to conduct fraud, extortion, and social engineering attacks. In many cases, only a few seconds of publicly available audio are needed to create a convincing imitation. The result is a growing category of deepfakes and scams that exploit something far more powerful than technology alone: human trust.

Similar incidents are becoming increasingly common.

Deepfake-enabled fraud has rapidly expanded beyond internet hoaxes and novelty videos into financial scams, impersonation schemes, disinformation campaigns, and targeted influence operations. Researchers and cybersecurity experts are now warning that deepfake fraud is occurring on an industrial scale, with AI-generated impersonation attacks becoming cheaper, faster, and more accessible to criminal organizations and malicious actors.

AI and the New Information Environment

At the same time, the challenge extends beyond scams and criminal activity.

Artificial intelligence is accelerating a much broader transformation already underway within the information environment itself.

The rise of social media fragmented traditional gatekeepers of information, such as media/news outlets, policymakers, government agencies, and trusted professionals like doctors and educators. Smartphones created an always-connected society where narratives travel globally within seconds. Algorithms increasingly shape what individuals see, believe, and prioritize online. Artificial intelligence now supercharges this environment by dramatically increasing the speed, scale, and personalization of “artificial” content generation.

The result is an information environment where many of us increasingly struggle to determine whether something is authentic at all.

This creates significant vulnerabilities for democratic societies like the United States and open information environments.

Strategic Competition and the Battle for Perception

Strategic competitors and malicious actors understand that modern conflict increasingly extends beyond military confrontation into influence, perception, and our societal fabric. The ability to shape narratives, undermine trust, generate confusion, or manipulate public sentiment can create strategic advantages without requiring conventional military force.

Artificial intelligence lowers the barriers to conducting those operations at scale.

A single actor can now generate massive quantities of persuasive content, imitate trusted figures, localize messaging for specific audiences, and automate influence campaigns across multiple platforms simultaneously. What once required large organizations or state-backed propaganda systems can increasingly be accomplished using commercially available AI tools and publicly accessible data.

This growing concern is increasingly reflected in the work of national security researchers and policy organizations studying artificial intelligence and information warfare. Analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) have warned that AI is rapidly transforming the information environment and lowering the barriers to sophisticated influence operations, while simultaneously raising difficult questions surrounding truth, trust, policy, and democratic resilience. 

 

The Cost of a Trust Deficit

The implications extend far beyond elections or viral misinformation.

Financial systems rely upon trusted transactions and secure communications. Emergency management organizations depend upon credible information sharing during disasters and crises. Military and intelligence communities rely upon confidence in data integrity and decision-making processes. Businesses rely upon being able to have trusted communications with employees, customers, and stakeholders.

When trust begins to erode, uncertainty fills the gap.

The long-term concern is not simply that people may believe false information. It is that people may eventually stop trusting anything at all - a growing trend that we are already seeing across the country.

That possibility carries profound implications for governance, public confidence, emergency response, and resilience in our communities.

Every Device Is Part of the Information Environment

This challenge is particularly important because modern societies are increasingly dependent upon digital systems for communication, commerce, public safety, healthcare, finance, education, and national security operations. The more interconnected societies become, the more damaging widespread distrust can become during moments of instability or crisis.

In March of 2026, the FBI issued a public service announcement that cyber threat actors are increasingly using everyday devices – such as smartphones, digital picture frames, routers, and smart TVs – as digital proxies to help conceal illegal online activities. What’s more is that these same vulnerabilities are being exploited by companies and threat actors alike to search, scrape, and supply data for AI models – bypassing traditional cybersecurity and hardware protocols.

In effect, our devices may now place us somewhere between being the subject of data surveillance and an unwitting proxy being used to mask illicit online behaviors.

Governance, Not Panic

At the same time, artificial intelligence itself is not inherently malicious.

AI carries extraordinary potential to improve healthcare, scientific discovery, logistics, cybersecurity, disaster response, and economic productivity. AI-assisted tools are already helping organizations identify cyber threats, improve emergency management, accelerate medical research, and support decision-making across both the public and private sectors.

The issue is not whether AI should exist.

The issue is whether societies can responsibly govern and adapt to technologies capable of reshaping human communication, trust, and decision-making at unprecedented speed.

This is where conversations surrounding AI governance become increasingly important.

Governance does not simply mean regulation. It also involves establishing ethical frameworks, institutional safeguards, transparency standards, accountability mechanisms, and shared societal expectations surrounding how artificial intelligence should be developed and applied.

Closing the Adaptation Gap

One of the reasons why these conversations are difficult is that AI evolves so rapidly. Policymakers often struggle to keep pace with technological change. Private industry continues to innovate. Universities and research institutions are racing to develop new capabilities. Meanwhile, the broader public is still trying to understand what these technologies are capable of doing.

The result is an environment where technological capability is accelerating faster than we can get our feet under us.

That gap creates risk.

Preserving Trust in the AI Era

The future challenge will not simply involve identifying malicious AI-generated content. It will involve preserving confidence in authentic information during periods of competition, crisis, conflict, and uncertainty. Societies that fail to understand the information environment and guard that confidence may struggle to maintain public trust, effective governance, and institutional legitimacy.

This places increasing importance on understanding the digital spaces that we spend our time in, cybersecurity concerns, resilient communications systems, institutional transparency, and a public awareness that enables people to engage responsibly.

It also requires a more mature national conversation surrounding resilience in the information age.

National security can no longer be viewed exclusively through the lens of military platforms or overseas conflict. Increasingly, resilience depends upon whether societies can maintain trusted systems, informed populations, and institutional credibility within rapidly evolving technological environments.

Artificial intelligence will continue transforming the modern world regardless of whether institutions feel prepared.

The question is whether we can adapt quickly enough to preserve the trust and stability upon which civil society depends.