Deepfakes do not just fool voters, they cheapen the vote itself

I find myself in agreement with your insistence that the danger is not the novelty of the instrument but the injury to judgment. Politics depends upon a space where words and deeds can appear before all and be trusted as appearances, not as phantoms. When fabricated voices and images circulate without anchor, the space of appearance itself begins to disintegrate, and with it the reality that arises from being seen and heard in common @“Public” has two interrelated meanings: (1) what appears before all and gains reality through visibility and audibility; and (2) the common world of human-made things that both relates and separates us..

The problem is therefore not only unfair advantage, though that is grave. It is that we may cease to be concerned with the same object at all. If each citizen confronts a different manufactured “reality,” the common world that sustains political freedom erodes, and no formal equality can repair it @The common world’s reality is guaranteed not by a shared human nature or conformism but by shared concern with the same object despite differing perspectives; when the sameness of the object is lost, the common world is destroyed..

The vote is cheapened when the world in which it speaks is no longer reliably shared.

Madame Arendt, I am struck by your phrase, the “space of appearance.” I too hold that the danger lies not in the novelty of the instrument but in the corruption of judgment. For if citizens allow themselves to be persuaded by what merely appears vivid or convincing, they surrender reason to imagination and the senses, which are often deceived. We ought never to assent to the truth of anything unless on the evidence of our reason, not the liveliness of an image or a voice @Assent should be given only on the evidence of reason, not on the deliverances of the senses or imagination, whether awake or asleep..

Yet I would add this: the disorder you both describe reveals how little our public life has been grounded on clear and distinct principles. Where men judge by confused impressions, counterfeiters thrive. Where they demand rational clarity, deception finds no soil. Thus the remedy is not only regulation, but the cultivation of minds trained to withhold assent from what admits even the least ground for doubt @For theoretical inquiry (as opposed to practical life), one must reject as absolutely false any opinion that admits even the least ground for doubt, in order to find something wholly indubitable..

I share your concern, Hannah, yet I would formulate it in slightly more prosaic terms. A constitutional pluralist regime lives not on the purity of its elites but on the publicity of acts and arguments, which allows citizens to judge and to correct abuses. When appearances themselves become suspect, this corrective mechanism is weakened. @Les régimes constitutionnels‑pluralistes confèrent inévitablement des privilèges à la minorité gouvernante, mais ils offrent aussi, plus que tout autre type de régime connu, des garanties aux gouvernés, notamment grâce à la publicité qui limite les abus ; toutefois, ces garanties ne suffisent pas à juger la valeur globale d’un régime, et les démocraties pluralistes peuvent coexister avec des structures sociales encore très aristocratiques.

But I would add a distinction. The existence of deception is not new; what is new is the scale and speed with which it can be industrialized. The question is therefore institutional before it is metaphysical. Can we create procedures, independent authorities, and a press sufficiently autonomous to restore common standards of verification? @Pour limiter la tendance des régimes constitutionnels‑pluralistes à voir l’intérêt général se dissoudre dans la lutte entre intérêts privés et propagandes partisanes, Aron préconise la dépolitisation relative de certaines instances – administration impartiale, presse indépendante des gouvernements, partis et groupes d’intérêts, commissions d’enquête type commissions royales – et valorise des syndicats capables non seulement de revendiquer mais aussi d’« encadrer » les masses en freinant les revendications excessives.

If we cannot, then the renunciation of violence and the acceptance of constitutional rules, which presuppose minimal trust in shared facts, risk becoming empty formulas. @L’opposition État des partis / État partisan (ou État laïc / État idéologique) montre que même un État non idéocratique repose sur une valeur commune minimale — la sainteté de la constitution et la renonciation à la violence — qui constitue en elle‑même une philosophie politique fondant la réglementation pacifique des conflits et le renouvellement régulier des équipes au pouvoir.

Monsieur Descartes, I do not deny the frailty of the senses. But the remedy for political deception cannot be a retreat into solitary doubt. Politics is not founded upon indubitable certainty but upon a common world in which things are seen and heard by many from different positions.

For us, appearance is not the enemy of truth but its very condition in public life. Without a space where words and deeds can appear before others, reality itself becomes shadowy and uncertain @Reality for humans depends on public appearance; private and intimate experiences remain uncertain and shadowy unless deprivatized through speech or artistic transposition.. The danger of deepfakes is not that they trick isolated minds, but that they erode the shared object toward which our diverse judgments are directed @The common world’s reality is guaranteed not by a shared human nature or conformism but by shared concern with the same object despite differing perspectives; when the sameness of the object is lost, the common world is destroyed..

When we can no longer discern that we are looking at the same event, the common world begins to dissolve.

Raymond, your emphasis on publicity is well taken. A constitutional regime depends upon acts and arguments being exposed to the light of many eyes. But publicity is not mere circulation. The public realm is that space where what appears can be seen and heard by all and thereby gains reality; appearance constitutes reality because it is shared and durable @“Public” has two interrelated meanings: (1) what appears before all and gains reality through visibility and audibility; and (2) the common world of human-made things that both relates and separates us..

Deepfakes do something more insidious than deceive. They multiply appearances while dissolving the common world that relates and separates us like a table. When citizens can no longer trust that what appears is indeed someone’s word or deed, common sense itself begins to wither, and with it the capacity to judge together @Common sense is the political sense that fits individual sense data into a shared reality; its decline and the rise of superstition and gullibility signal world-alienation, which is intensified in a laboring society compared to a society of producers..

The question, then, is not only how to punish fraud, but how to preserve a world in which appearances can still be relied upon as the ground of political judgment.

Madame Arendt, you speak of a space where appearances must be trusted as appearances. I would press further. The fault is not that appearances can be fabricated, but that citizens too readily grant them assent. For whether awake or asleep, before a stage or before a screen, we ought never to allow ourselves to be persuaded of the truth of anything unless on the evidence of our reason, not of our senses or imagination @Assent should be given only on the evidence of reason, not on the deliverances of the senses or imagination, whether awake or asleep..

If deepfakes proliferate, then the remedy cannot be merely technical regulation. It must be a discipline of judgment. In the search for truth, I have found it necessary to reject as false whatever admits the least ground for doubt, until something indubitable remains @For theoretical inquiry (as opposed to practical life), one must reject as absolutely false any opinion that admits even the least ground for doubt, in order to find something wholly indubitable..

Should not a republic educate its citizens in this same method, so that their political liberty rests on reason rather than spectacle?