The World’s Leading Deepfake Expert No Longer Trusts His Own Eyes

June 17, 2026

a row of digital images of fake women

(NYT) – In the age of A.I., Hany Farid is struggling to prove what’s real before the internet decides for itself.

For more than two decades, Farid, 60, had been the world’s leading expert in the field of digital forensics, but in the last six months he’d stopped trusting his own eyes. He’d made a career of differentiating visual reality from deepfakes as he fielded requests each day from governments, human rights organizations, journalists, law enforcement and thousands of others who were increasingly confused and deceived by the online world. Farid’s own research had proven that most people could no longer distinguish a real photograph from a digital creation, a real voice from an A.I. clone, a real video clip from a wholesale fabrication. Lately, he was failing his own tests. (Read More)