AI Personas and Documentary Ethics: What We're Not Talking About
Published: May 1, 2026 | Author: Todd Max Carey
Originally published on LinkedIn
The Core Question
Documentary rests on an assumption most of us never have to state out loud — that on the other side of the camera, there's somebody. Somebody who can be asked, did you consent to this. Somebody you can sit with.
That assumption is doing a lot of quiet work in our medium. And I think it's worth noticing now, while we still have the instinct to notice.
What I Found Researching AI Personas
I spent the week researching AI personas. The landscape of AI-generated personas on social platforms. The faceless Instagram pages. The synthetic creators. The funnels behind them.
I didn't go in planning to build any of it. I went in because I think most of us working in documentary haven't sat with what's actually happening.
Three Things That Surprised Me
1. The Technology Wasn't the Surprise
The technology was about where I thought it'd be. The surprise is how comfortable the platforms have become with the ambiguity.
2. Detection Exists But Isn't Deployed
Detection exists. It mostly isn't being deployed where regular people would see it. The audience increasingly can't tell what's a real person, and — this is the part I keep coming back to — they increasingly aren't trying.
3. The Real Question Isn't "Is It Deceptive?"
Most of the ethics conversation gets framed as "is it deceptive." I get why. It's a tractable question.
But I think the more interesting question is what it costs the audience to spend hours every day in a feed where they can no longer assume there's a person on the other side.
What This Means for Documentary
Documentary rests on an assumption that on the other side of the camera, there's somebody. Somebody who can be asked, did you consent to this.
Because audiences are being slowly trained out of needing it. And once that reflex is gone — the small, automatic "is that somebody?" — I don't think we get it back easily.
No Tidy Conclusion
I don't have a tidy conclusion. I'm honestly still working through it. But I think a lot of us in this work probably should be.