Nobody Knows What’s Real Anymore

(And We’re All Pretending That’s Fine)

So apparently, 97% of us can’t tell the difference between real music and AI-generated tunes anymore. Which, if you think about it for more than thirty seconds, is absolutely bloody mental.

Not the statistic itself…though that’s disturbing enough…but the fact that we’re all just… carrying on. Scrolling past it. Nodding vaguely. Filing it under “huh, interesting” and moving on with our day.

Meanwhile, deepfake videos of politicians are sparking actual political uprisings. Not metaphorical ones. Real ones. People are taking to the streets because of things that never happened, said by people who never said them, in videos that look more real than reality itself.

And we’re still here, thumb-scrolling through it all like it’s just another Tuesday.

Welcome to the Post-Real World

Here’s what we’ve managed to achieve as a species: We’ve invented technology so sophisticated that it can fool almost everyone, almost all the time. Then we’ve democratised it. Then we’ve let it loose on the internet, that famously rational and level-headed place where people definitely think before they share.

What could possibly go wrong?

Oh, right. Everything.

The politicians who never said those things are now having to publicly deny saying those things, which makes them look guilty of saying those things, which reinforces the belief that they said those things. It’s a perfect ouroboros of bollocks, eating its own tail in real-time.

And the music thing? Christ, the music thing might actually be worse.

The Soundtrack to Our Confusion

Ninety-seven per cent. Think about that.

That means if you put a hundred people in a room and played them a mix of real and AI-generated songs, only three of them would be able to consistently tell which was which. Three. You’d have better odds guessing which cup the ball is under at a dodgy fairground.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Well, does it really matter? If it sounds good, who cares if it was made by a human or a computer?”

And look, I get it. I do. If the end result is indistinguishable, then maybe authenticity is just a romantic notion we’re clinging to because we’re scared of becoming obsolete.

But here’s the thing: It does matter. Because music isn’t just about the notes in the right order. It’s about the human experience behind them. The heartbreak, the joy, the three-in-the-morning desperation, the mundane Tuesday afternoon when you wrote something brilliant by accident.

AI doesn’t have that. AI has algorithms. And yes, those algorithms can analyse every hit song ever written and spit out something that sounds eerily similar. But it didn’t live anything. It didn’t feel anything. It just… computed.

The Emperor’s New Everything

But the real kicker…the bit that keeps me up at night…is that we’re all participating in this collective delusion.

We know deepfakes exist. We know AI-generated content is everywhere. We know we probably can’t tell the difference anymore.

And yet we keep consuming it all like it’s 2008 and the internet is still a fun place where nothing could possibly be fake.

We see a video of a politician saying something outrageous, and we think, “Well, that’s definitely real because it feels like something they’d say.” We hear a song and think, “This slaps,” without ever wondering whether a human actually made it.

We’ve stopped asking “Is this real?” because frankly, it’s exhausting to ask that question about everything, all the time.

The Authenticity Crisis We’re Not Talking About

Here’s what terrifies me: We’re one generation away from not caring at all.

Kids growing up now won’t remember a time when you could reasonably assume that what you saw online was real. They’ll just accept that everything might be fake, shrug, and get on with it.

And maybe that’s fine. Maybe that’s evolution. Maybe we’re just adapting to a world where authenticity is optional, and provenance is irrelevant.

Or maybe we’re sleepwalking into a reality where truth is just another data point to be manipulated, where art is whatever an algorithm says it is, and where we’ve outsourced our ability to discern what’s real to the very technology that’s making everything fake.

So What Do We Do?

I wish I had a pithy answer. I wish I could end this with some clever call-to-action that would make you feel empowered instead of vaguely unsettled.

But the truth is, I don’t know.

All I know is that we’re living through something genuinely unprecedented. We’ve created technology that can replicate reality so well that reality itself has become negotiable. And we’re all just… going along with it.

The politicians will keep making videos denying the fake videos. The AI will keep churning out songs that sound exactly like songs humans would write. And we’ll keep scrolling, listening, consuming, pretending we can tell the difference.

Until one day, we wake up and realise we can’t remember what was real to begin with.

And by then, it might not matter anyway.

If you enjoyed this existential crisis disguised as an article, you’re probably the sort of person who appreciates my newsletter. Or therapy. Possibly both.