Concern 743 · Working draft · editorial review in progress
Deepfake historical documents
Synthetic historical-document risk concerns fabricated records that look old or authentic enough to mislead people about the past.
Understanding the concern
AI can produce a plausible letter, photograph or recording in a historical style. The danger is not imaginative reconstruction that is clearly labelled; it is presenting invented material as evidence. A realistic surface may persuade viewers even when the item's origin cannot be traced.
Archive guidance treats provenance and documented changes as important parts of trust. Checking a historical item also involves context, comparison with independent records and specialist judgment. Think of an old-looking envelope without a reliable chain of custody: appearance alone does not establish who wrote it or when. Detection software is not a substitute for this investigation.
An example
A generated 'historical letter' circulates without a clear origin and is used to support a claim about a public figure.
Illustrative unless identified as a documented case.
Words in plain English
- AI
- Software that learns patterns from examples or uses rules to perform tasks such as recognizing images or generating text. It can make mistakes and does not understand every situation as a person would.
- Provenance
- The history of information: where it came from and how it has been handled or changed.
- Synthetic
- Made by a computer or another artificial process rather than directly recorded from the event being described.
Evidence and its limits
The source provides preservation and provenance guidance. The forged-letter example is hypothetical, not a documented incident from the report.
Library of Congress and C2PA for G+LAM community 2026 · Cultural-heritage practice guidance
Content Authenticity and Provenance in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Call to Action for the Libraries, Archives and Museums Community ↗ (opens in a new tab)Documenting origin and changes across digital collection lifecycles. Provenance supports verification but does not independently prove every factual claim.
Broader frameworks and background
These resources provide context. They do not establish every claim in this concern.
A question to discuss
What traceable evidence establishes this document's origin, rather than merely its convincing appearance?
Keep track of different views, what needs checking, and any next step in your own discussion notes.
Open discussion notes →Principles for the conversation
Before you finish · reflect together
Virtues and principles to consider
Virtues are qualities we practice in how we treat people and make choices. They are not scores for judging someone. Use these ideas to explore what a thoughtful response could look like.
Learning together
Learning together means treating experience as something a group can examine and improve. It values honest feedback over appearing successful.
Agree on a question, try something manageable, and compare what different people observed. Share failures as well as gains. Decide together what the evidence supports and what remains uncertain.
Ask together: What have we learned together that should guide the next step?
Humility
Humility means recognizing the limits of our knowledge and being willing to learn from others. Expertise can be valuable without answering every question.
State where evidence is weak, invite criticism, and listen to people with different experience. Leave room to revise a decision when new information appears.
Ask together: What might we be missing, and who could help us see it?
Truthfulness
Truthfulness means making claims that match the evidence and being clear about what we do not know. It includes correcting mistakes rather than protecting a polished story.
Check sources, label guesses, and distinguish a trial result from a proven benefit. If AI helped produce a claim, someone still needs to take responsibility for checking it.
Ask together: What can we honestly say, and what still needs checking?
Editorial ratings
These are editorial judgments from the register, not measured probabilities or predictions about your situation.
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