Hany Farid, an expert in identifying deepfakes, or AI-generated footage of events that have never occurred, claims that human beings can correctly recognize AI-audio just slightly more than chance [1,2]. That sure makes our responses to what we hear and see on social media and professional platforms important: Arguably, madness is a product of responding to what is not real.

Farid’s tools for identification are primarily technical. He uses machines (computers) to do it, but there are other ways of figuring out if what you are seeing and hearing is AI-generated.

Unlike machine consciousness, human consciousness is sensual: we inhabit a meat suit and gather data through it. Two senses are essential for sifting authentic content from AI content. First, the voice of AI-generated content has a particular scripted tone—a tone that transfers even into the academic works/self-help books I edit.

Then there are visual clues—an overly dramatic edge, five fingers and a thumb, shadows that contradict (or none), limbs that come out of or disappear into other objects. As AI is improved and the pixel arrangements become more seamless, the visual clues will become less evident.

A third helpful sense for differentiating authentic footage from AI-generated footage is what some call intuition, a flexible, non-rational experience-based insight [3]. I call the latter soul. If you tune into what you see with your soul, you can feel the soul or absence of it in what is presented. AI generates a deadness. Even when the creator tries to animate what AI produces, it comes across as a two-dimensional monotone monologue with no spark of life behind it. Inevitably, intelligent human beings are going to grow tired of what Stephen Robinson calls AI-slop, or “the flood of low-quality AI outputs that look convincing at first glance but miss the mark in accuracy, tone, usability, or brand fit” [4].   

Of course, AI is not all bad. It is a blessing when one wants to check a fact or definition, find an answer to a quick question, or is gathering and synthesizing information. On social media, sometimes a story is told that tugs at the heart, and your heart might just open. But AI is not going to save us from anything except the heavy lifting or replace jobs except for those held by bureaucrats and call-centre staff. The world is full of forms to complete and chatbots helping one do it.  

Still, it is time to see AI for what it is: a machine, a tool that echoes what has been put into language and published digitally by the collective of human consciousness. Essentially, AI has no access to what is. It cannot access the messiness of being in a body and rubbing shoulders with others. It only has access to the experiences that human beings put into language. Its condition for existence is “data.” Data is always second-hand.

But most important of all, remember AI will never enjoy those non-rational moments of insight that expand human consciousness.

1. NOVA PBS Official. (2025, Oct. 12) How to Detect Deepfakes: The Science of Recognizing AI Generated Content.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMoOCKkcd_w,
2. NOVA PBS Official. (2025, Aug. 26). The Deepfake Detective | Particles of Thought. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG2_GhNdTek
3. Rephrasely Media. (2023, Jan. 15). Instinct vs. Intuition. https://rephrasely.com/usage/instinct-vs-intuition
4. Robinson, Stephan. (2025, Oct. 21). “AI Slop is Creating New Freelance Work: Why Businesses Still Need Human Experts in 2025. https://www.peopleperhour.com/discover/guides/ai-slop-is-creating-new-freelance-work-why-businesses-still-need-human-experts-in-2025/