You should see what people were capable of in the darkroom, let alone before all this. You could always manipulate imagery ever since there was imagery to manipulate.
Big difference between that and writing an AI prompt.
We've gone from highly skilled people being able to forge some specific photos and documents using substantial time/energy/resources, to any asshole being able to generate realistic full-motion video in minutes.
I get that there is a certain type of moron who thinks that the collapse in cost of misinformation has no harm... but all you've done is announce to the world that you are a moron.
How many people could do that?
How long did it take?
Now it’s a lot easier and faster
This is why:
- the whole roll of negatives was prime evidence;
- police forces were one of the biggest users of Polaroid instant film.
And moreover, who had a darkroom and the skills to edit substantially a picture?
Whereas here we have nobodies being able to generate pixel-perfect fake "evidence" from the computers they already have.