A camera is an ethical tool which helps guarantee credibility because the photographer is an observer. AI images are just numbers in a box that have no conscience and no morality. But they look like a photographer “took them”. Synthetic images are not any more real than fiction is fact. Even if fiction sounds like fact, it is not. That’s why books are identified as fiction or non-fiction. The real danger with AI begins when the public can no longer believe documentation because they can’t see the difference. When lies become truths, truths become lies. Our job is to hold those in power accountable, so the critical question becomes the future of democracy.