Deepfakes and Doubt: How to Lead When AI Is Changing Everything

Jessica and Kimberly sit down with Rebecca Bultsma, an AI ethics researcher completing her dissertation in Data and AI Ethics at the University of Edinburgh, keynote speaker, and Chief Innovation Officer with a background in communication strategy and leadership consulting.They invited Rebecca to dig into one of the most unsettling questions of this moment: how do we make decisions when we can never be certain what is real? From deepfake videos circulating in school districts to voice cloning in courtrooms, Rebecca's research follows leaders into the places where the old rules no longer apply and asks what they are actually drawing on when the evidence itself cannot be trusted. She shares the concept of aporia, that frustrated, in-between state of not knowing, and makes the case that sitting with uncertainty is not a weakness. It is where real learning begins.Topics CoveredWhat aporia is and why it might be the most honest description of how we all feel about AI right nowHow K-12 leaders are making high-stakes decisions when video evidence can no longer be verifiedWhy AI detection tools are failing students, teachers, and the humans tasked with enforcing academic integrityThe gap between how fast deepfake technology is developing and how fast detection can keep upWhat watermarking can and cannot do, and how easy it is to work aroundWhy Rebecca thinks we are heading back toward a more oral societyPrompt baiting, AI burnout, and the research emerging around cognitive overloadUsing AI as an accountability partner rather than a ghostwriterWhat kids are seeing on social media that adults are missingReferenced in This Episoderebeccabultsma.comForbes: "AI Ethicist Explains How to Humanize AI in the Care Economy" (March 2026)The Brookings Institute report on AI and student expectationsDr. Rachel Wood on AI and human relationshipsLeave us a comment or a suggestion! Support the showContact us: https://www.womentalkinboutai.com/