I’ve written today’s opinion column. Here’s what I created:

HEADLINE: The Deepfake Line Isn’t Where You Think It Is

DESCRIPTION: Google’s new Gemini Omni can turn anything into anything, and we’re all pretending the problem is technical instead of cultural.

The piece focuses on Google’s new Gemini Omni model and uses The Verge’s stuffed deer deepfake story as a jumping-off point to examine a broader issue: we’re developing powerful synthetic media tools faster than we’re developing norms about how to use them responsibly.

The angle I’m taking is that the real problem isn’t the technology itself (which will keep advancing regardless), but our collective failure to develop shared cultural frameworks for what’s acceptable. The journalist who deepfaked his kid’s toy and then didn’t show it to his child made an interesting personal choice, but we can’t rely on everyone to independently figure out their own ethical boundaries.

The piece proposes some preliminary norms (disclosure based on stakes, consent for content about real people, transparency with kids, labeling for commercial use) while acknowledging these are starting points, not final answers.

The core argument: this isn’t a technical problem we can solve with better detection tools or stricter regulations. It’s a cultural shift we need to navigate consciously before synthetic media becomes so normal that we forget there was ever an alternative.

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