Something specific is shifting in how younger users evaluate information online, and it predates AI tools by nearly a decade. What AI tools are doing now is accelerating the problem for everyone.
In The Future of Truth, researcher Steven Rosenbaum examines how Gen Z - people born roughly between 1997 and 2012 - developed their relationship with fact and verification inside social media systems built to maximize engagement rather than accuracy. His argument is direct: when emotionally resonant content spreads faster than sourced content, and when that's the dominant media environment someone grows up inside, the categories of "true" and "feels true" can stop functioning as separate filters. An excerpt from the book is available here.
When AI Enters the Picture
The timing matters because AI content generation tools have dramatically lowered the cost of producing authoritative-looking information. A well-formatted article, a photorealistic image, a voice recording that sounds like a specific person - none of these require institutional backing or editorial review anymore. They require access to tools that are now widely available.
ChatGPT can generate a confident, coherent answer that is factually wrong. AI image tools can produce a photograph of an event that never happened. Voice-cloning tools can create audio that sounds like a real public figure saying something they never said. Production quality no longer signals reliability the way it once did - and a generation raised online already knew not to trust it.
What Content Creators Need to Think About
For marketers, writers, and content creators using AI tools daily, Rosenbaum's work is a practical prompt. Your audience's relationship with source verification is not what it was five years ago. Some readers apply more skepticism across the board; others apply less because the volume of content makes thorough checking impractical.
Neither response is fully rational. But both create real conditions for people publishing AI-assisted content. Accuracy matters more in this environment, not less - because the tools that make inaccuracy easy to produce are the same ones your readers know you have access to. A single factual error in an AI-generated piece now carries more reputational weight than it did when producing convincing-looking content required more effort.
Rosenbaum's broader point is that this isn't a Gen Z problem to be solved by older generations explaining media literacy. It's a structural feature of how information now travels, and AI tools have made it everyone's working condition.