Much of what you’re seeing on the internet may no longer be real.
That’s the warning raised by independent journalist James Li on TikTok, who says AI has become so advanced that creators are now generating entirely fake people just to produce rage bait videos—and it’s paying off. According to him, some are earning $50,000 to $60,000 a month from this kind of content.
And with the industry expected to keep growing, many are starting to worry about the long-term consequences, wondering if AI will end up, as Li puts it, “rotting our brains.”
Scroll down to hear more of what he had to say, and let us know what you think.
Much of what you’re seeing on the internet might not be real anymore
Image credits: Solen Feyissa/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Instead, one man warns that fake AI videos may be flooding your feed and earning creators tens of thousands of dollars
Image credits: 5149jamesli
Watch the full video below
[embed]https://www.tiktok.com/@5149jamesli/video/7507726195564334367[/embed]
Many people can’t tell the difference between AI and humans, research shows
Image credits: Ali Khakzadi/Pexels (not the actual photo)
Nearly 70 years ago, AI research first began when Dartmouth professor John McCarthy coined the term artificial intelligence while organizing a summer workshop focused on machine thinking.
Fast forward to today, and AI isn’t some distant futuristic concept anymore. It’s in our everyday lives—people use it to generate images, write text, manipulate videos, and even as a stand-in for a therapist, coworker, or friend.
But as powerful and helpful as it is, AI is also proving to be just as dangerous.
Since ChatGPT went mainstream and competing platforms followed, serious concerns have emerged, from identity theft using deepfakes to the spread of misinformation and growing job disruption.
Naturally, one of the biggest worries is that, over time, people won’t be able to tell what’s real and what’s AI-generated. In fact, many are already struggling.
In a 2023 study by the University of Waterloo, participants were shown images of both AI-generated and real people. While 61% guessed correctly, 39% of people were still unable to tell the difference.
Things get even more concerning in conversation. A large-scale “Turing Test” was conducted by AI startup AI21 using its social game Human or Not. With over 1.5 million people participating in two-minute conversations, 32% of users couldn’t tell if they were chatting with a human or a bot.
However, perhaps the most alarming findings came from a February 2025 study by biometric security company iProov. Researchers tested 2,000 people across the UK and the US by showing them a mix of real and AI-generated images and videos. Shockingly, only 0.1% of participants were able to correctly identify all of the fake content.
Roughly 30% of adults aged 55–64, and 39% of those 65 and older, weren’t familiar with deepfakes at all, making them especially exposed to this kind of content.
Videos proved even more convincing than images, with participants getting things wrong 36% more often when video was involved.
So, it’s no surprise that some creators are cashing in, churning out AI-generated videos purely for clicks and profit. Others have used AI to scam people by pretending to be someone they’re not. There have even been incidents where AI tools like X’s Grok shared false information during election coverage.
In response, governments and regulators are starting to take action.
The European Union introduced the AI Act, one of the first major attempts to manage the growing risks tied to artificial intelligence.
Around the world, at least 69 countries have put forward over 1,000 policy proposals and legal frameworks aimed at addressing concerns around AI safety and how it should be used.
But whether regulations can keep pace with AI’s rapid development is still an open question.