Deepfakes: The Artificiality of Happiness

As AI becomes more normalized in everyday life, deepfakes have become a major topic of discussion. A deepfake is a form of media, such as a video, photo, or audio recording, that AI uses to change facial expressions, speech, or appearances. These alterations can realistically depict someone saying something they never said or doing something they never did.

On the positive side, deepfakes can provide entertainment, art, and creativity. By digitally recreating actors and creating performers and synthetic influencers, to name a few, deepfakes can provide enjoyable content for viewers without real-world exploitation or human limitations. For instance, in the film industry, deepfakes have been used to digitally age or de-age actors, resurrect deceased actors, and sync dialogue and facial expressions for dubbing. Additionally, due to the endless creative possibilities of AI, deepfakes can tell entirely fictional stories and make forms of art and storytelling possible that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to create. From an educational standpoint, deepfake technology can also help students learn new information by providing memorable resources that bring historical figures, events, or other material to life.

However, similar qualities also make deepfakes unsettling. As deepfakes become more realistic, it can become increasingly difficult to know whether the presented information or situation is real or not, making it easier for misinformation and deception to spread. Because AI personas can closely imitate human appearance and behavior, many people easily trust them without knowing that they are artificial, only to feel deceived when they discover the truth. Often tailored to individual interests and preferences, AI-generated content makes it easier to emotionally manipulate people by feeding them content specifically designed to attract them. Because deepfakes can depict idealized versions of people and situations that appear authentic, constant exposure can make ordinary life, which is filled with imperfections, disagreements, and unpredictability, feel less satisfying by comparison. Thus, as deepfakes reach larger audiences, the gap between perfect AI content and messy human reality widens, ultimately shaping the expectations we have for our own lives.

The problem with deepfakes is not one of good vs. evil, but rather the very existence of happiness in a world where reality is blurred beyond recognition. While deepfakes bring a certain amount of value to the people who consume them (entertainment, creative possibility, educational tools, etc.), the issue lies in the fact that as deepfakes become indistinguishable from reality, we face a paradox. If a deepfake experience makes someone genuinely happy, but it’s later determined to be artificial, does that happiness retroactively become invalid? More pressingly, what constitutes “real” or “valid” happiness when we fail to distinguish authentic human connection from AI-generated perfection?

But this paradox has a real consequence. Someone might find joy and community in following a synthetic influencer, connecting with content that feels personally tailored to them and never burdened by the messy reality of human limitations; yet this relationship is built on unknowing deception. When realizing this, does that mean said happiness is no longer valid? More subtly, the constant consumption of idealized AI content warps our baseline for what’s acceptable in ordinary human existence, as we begin to judge our own reality against these standards. Real friendships, real conversations, real life—all of it starts to feel mediocre by comparison.

A more subtle case of the aforementioned, however, is when people begin to consume AI-generated content (which is likely tailored to bring them joy) and then find that the only way they can achieve such happiness is through the consumption of these particular kinds of content. This can lead to a sort of “dual” existence, where people have “ideal” relationships and friendships that aren't rooted in reality, as well as “real” ones that can't fill the emotional void the AI-generated ones do.

There is also a data dimension worth considering: every deepfake and AI-generated persona is optimized specifically to maximize what makes you happy. Companies have to collect reams of information about us to craft content designed to manipulate our moods with precision. They are deliberately engineering this trap. They can then use this information to manufacture products that appeal to our weaknesses, which, in this case, is happiness. In light of all of this, happiness becomes a commodity, and perhaps the question that needs to be asked is not about the validity of happiness in a world of deepfakes, but rather the value of happiness in a world of deepfakes, and more importantly, who profits from it.

Connecting to this newsletter’s theme of “happiness,” we must step back and ask ourselves the question of what it means to be happy in the first place. What does it mean to be happy in a world where we can no longer trust what’s real? If deepfakes can, in essence, grant us real happiness, but at the cost of the perception of everything as “not-real” happiness, have we truly gained anything? Have we truly achieved real happiness if we have been conditioned to believe that the manufactured kind is superior in almost every way? Because in the end, it still boils down to how much happiness we can get from other people, as opposed to companies that are looking to maximize profits by selling us happiness.

Audrey Hong ’27 and Alisha Gupta ’28

References

Loux, Matthew, and Bryce Loux. “What Is Deepfake Technology? Understanding Its Broad Impact: American Military University (AMU).” American Military University, 11 Sept. 2025, www.amu.apus.edu/area-of-study/information-technology/resources/what-is-deepfake-technology/. Accessed 23 September 2026.

“Gao-20-379SP, Science & Tech Spotlight: Deepfakes.” U.S. Government Accountability Office, Feb. 2020, www.gao.gov/assets/gao-20-379sp.pdf. Accessed 23 September 2026.