I honestly thought the universe had short-circuited when I clicked on that viral YouTube video of Katy Perry casually belting out Dum Maro Dum. I sat there completely mesmerized, watching the ‘California Gurl’ fling ‘Hare Rama Hare Krishna’ vibes, leaving me wondering if someone had slipped something into my morning coffee . Her Hindi pronunciation was an absolute rollercoaster of chaotic perfection, simultaneously sounding like a high-end Bollywood playback singer and an American tourist desperately trying to navigate a Delhi spice market .
It was a glorious, cross-cultural dream that I could not look away from. It was then that a dear friend (who is always right) pulled me out of my trance and told me that the viral video circulating online, which appears to show pop star Katy Perry singing the iconic Bollywood track “Dum Maro Dum”, is not genuine but is a digitally altered creation. The clip is a deepfake or audio-swapped edit that replaces the original audio of one of her live performances with a dubbed recording of the classic Hindi song. The video is a fan-made mashup and a complete fabrication.
Deepfakes now shape reality ‘Deepfakes’ have made it terrifyingly easy to get conned because our brains are still running on 1990s software that foolishly believes. They have turned our lives into an unpredictable, AI-generated bizarre, unsettling dream where you can barely trust your own eyes. We are psychologically not fully equipped for a world where AI can flawlessly paste your boss’s face onto a digital puppet demanding wire transfers.
There was a time when a masterfully painted portrait meant that someone possessed a skill. We used to look at a breathtaking photograph and think, “What an excellent eye for composition!” Now, we glance at the exact same image and marvel, “Wow, look at that AI generated image!” As a result, the world has officially flipped upside down: if you do something brilliant today, humanity assumes it is the work of AI. Our stolen credit We used to fear that artificial intelligence would steal our jobs. We are now discovering that it has stolen our credit too.
When a human being accomplishes something genuinely great, modern society instinctively assumes the deed belongs to Artificial Intelligence. The irony of humanity’s greatest triumph inventing machines that now effortlessly steal credit for our hard-earned biological triumphs is a magnificent, hilarious tragedy. We have entered an era where being exceptionally good at something is no longer a sign of talent. It is a sign of a good internet connection. If you write a beautifully paced essay with flawless grammar, folks think that you did not actually write it, you just got ChatGPT Plus to do the work.
The Death of Human Genius We have arrived at the spectacular cultural juncture where any display of human competence is viewed with immense suspicion. If a young student writes an excellent essay, the professor doesn’t praise his or her burgeoning intellect; the professor runs it through AI Detection software to see if a machine did the heavy lifting. The logical conclusion of this phenomenon is that human brilliance has been effectively reduced to a mere hallucination.
If some one solves a complex mathematical theorem, paints a masterpiece, or even just manages to write a brief but nice essay, society assumes they are simply the work of AI. The psychology behind this phenomenon is beautifully paradoxical. Deep down, we know that Artificial Intelligence is essentially a remarkably advanced trick a giant, glowing statistical pastiche of the internet. Yet, our brains are so wired for cognitive offloading and instant gratification that we genuinely believe that a cold, silicon chips is inherently more capable of profound artistic or intellectual achievement than a human being.
The New Standard of Proof Excellence is now increasingly viewed with suspicion due to the rise of AI-generated content and public skepticism of institutional meritocracy. When perfect results can be effortlessly produced or systematically manipulated, the authenticity of human effort and the definition of true capability are constantly questioned. Therefore, to prove you actually did something yourself, you must consider injecting flaws into your work to establish your human identity. Writers must add a glaring typo every two or three paragraphs.
Artists must draw a hand with seven fingers just to prove that it was the work of a human being, not AI. Perfection belongs to the machines now. If your work is seamless, you are a fraud. The only way to be celebrated as a human creator is to be deliberately mediocre. Ultimate Irony Perhaps the ultimate irony is that humans spent decades striving to be more efficient, creative, and intelligent, only to discover that the moment we succeeded, everyone assumed that a robot had done it. If you write a heartbreaking poem, your critics will say it lacks a “human touch”, and that it’s merely an AI creation.
The struggle is no longer to be great, but to prove that you were the one who did the struggling. Thus,we are watching a strange tragedy unfold. Human beings spent thousands of years evolving, building civilizations, and refining arts, only to hit a ceiling where our own peak performance is dismissed as a software product. In the modern era, advanced technology and Artificial Intelligence threaten to diminish the value of human skill, creativity, and identity. We risk reducing human effort to an afterthought, making people feel replaceable by the very tools they created. Today, if you want to impress anyone with your greatness, you’d better do it in a flawed manner. Otherwise, enjoy the compliments on behalf of your motherboard.
(The writer is a retired officer of the Indian Foreign Service (1976 Batch))