Making our own truth

AI is the most recent plaything we have. AI speeds up search engines and provides us with fast facts; it can help us retrieve lost information and even repair photos. Militarys around the world are now using AI for building and targeting weapons. 

Facebook and other social media platforms, AI-generated images and movies are also doing the rounds, and they are easy to make. Recently, I asked ChatGPT to make me a photo of Australia’s former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, dressed as Rambo, attending the Melbourne Flower Festival in 2025. Here’s the result.

Now this is a clever photo, but it is not a true photo. Bob Hawke has never been photographed as Rambo; he did not have the physique of Rambo, and he could not have attended the Melbourne Flower Festival in 2025, because he died in 2019. So, as good as this fake image is, it does not reflect the true record of an actual event. The story this photo tells never happened.

Truth centres around actual people and factual events in time and space. Truth is not fiction, yet if I pushed my fictitious photo around with the story that, after his retirement, Bob Hawke became a Rambo-style assassin who used to attend flower shows. Some gullible people may believe it based solely on this photo evidence. 

By making up false events and images, AI is giving us the ability to edit the truth, play with other people’s lives and can provide us with weighted evidence that the lies we tell are in some ways factual.

Historical record

We used to rely on photos to record actual events. The photo on the left is a historical photo of Bob Hawke, watching Queen Elizabeth the Second sign into law the Australia Act. This photo was taken for its historical significance, and despite the other witnesses to this event and actual pieces of paper that were signed on the day, this photo remains as evidence that this event happened.

Family photos can also be a historical record of a family event or holiday. The picture reminds us of what happened, and we treasure those memories.

Not so with my Rambo photo, or other such photos that are generated by AI! So, wrongly used AI can mess with our perception of reality and truth, and we need to be aware of this. People can have all kinds of reasons to mess with truth and reality, some quite innocent, others with deliberate intent.

The Killing of bin Laden

 

In 2011, President Barack Obama sent a SEAL Team to Pakistan to kill Osama Bin Laden. A live feed of the event was sent to White House, and President Obama and senior White House staff watched the events unfold in the White House Situation Room. After the kill was confirmed, a photo of the President and senior staff in the situation room was issued to the press along with a press statement. An Orthodox Jewish newspaper ran the story but edited out the images of the women in the photo, including Hilary Clinton, before they published it. 

(https://www.smh.com.au/world/paper-erases-clinton-from-history-20110509-1ef5d.html)

A photo that was meant to be a historical record of an event was altered because this newspaper had a policy that did not allow the publication of images of women. This newspaper edited the historical record in order to make it fit its worldview. Now, in their defence, one must note that facts of the event were not altered, just the facts in the photo. So, they were still telling the truth in a guarded kind of way. 

However, this kind of situation only worsens when all truth is abandoned, and conspiracy theorists use AI to prove their unfounded theories; when this happens, things can really get sticky. Confusion is sewn into the minds of people who are not being presented with the “truth”, just theories supported by AI-generated material. 

A foundation has already been laid.

Recently, I was looking at some videos on YouTube that were in-depth looks at the characters of The Lord of the Rings, their prehistory and what happened to them after the storyline of The Lord of the Rings story was complete. 

J R R Tolkien was a thorough writer; he not only wrote a fantastic story, but he had also went into a lot of detail by creating prehistories, languages and a postscript to his main adventures. One could say that he created an alternative universe. Other writers have also done the same, and there is a plethora of stories and characters that exist in alternative universes. The Marvel characters can be seen as being from alternative universes that have somehow intersected with our time and universe, and so their adventures continue.

Then there are the video games and other movies that are centred on alternative universes, and things like Minecraft, which help you to create your own alternative universe. 

And of course, an alternative universe brings with it “alternative truth” as part of the storyline. New beings and characters, from other places such as elves, hobbits, Darth Vader, and even some Greco-Roman gods, and other imaginings of the human mind. These bring with them new laws, powers, and magic that, in our universe, make them super beings. 

Whilst reading and watching fantasy is a fun way to relax and an escape from the tensions of daily life, it should not separate us from reality. We live in our world, not in places like Middle-earth. We have children and other responsibilities that require our attention. Fiction is fiction, reality is reality; we should know the difference between the two. Then, there is the problem of pain.

Pain

Pain, whether emotional or physical, can drive us to do many things. Pain can be the cause of many bad choices. It can compel us with the desire to live elsewhere than the reality we now live in. But God has put us here on this earth for a purpose, and our desire to escape reality may also be us trying to escape from God, who is the only one who can stop the pain or solve the issues that we are trying to avoid.

Avoidance

Being human means that we tend to avoid difficult and painful situations, and things like our imaginations and AI will help us to create alternative realities that we can feel safe in. The only problem is that alternative realities are not true realities. We still must live in this world, difficult as it may be.  

I love the creation story outlined in Genesis.  It helps me to get a perspective on my life. One thing that I have gleaned from it is that before sin came into the world, God intended us to live with Him in a sin-free world.  Sin both tainted humankind and the creation we live in. The difficulties we face now come from sin in us and in creation. God has prepared a sinless place for us to live in after we die. A place where we can live in peace and happiness with Him. He understands our dilemma, which is why he sent Jesus to die for us. Those who believe in Jesus and confess Him as Lord will have everlasting life in a sinless place. In the meantime, we must live here. And the only way we can do that is by the power of Jesus in us. We don’t need an alternative universe; we just need Jesus.