Just like other animals, humans are a product of evolution. Through millions of years of natural selection, our bodies and minds have been evolved to survive the harsh environment of the natural world full of lions, tigers and other ferocious animals. We have been very successful and are now at the top of the food chain on earth.

From the early age of homo sapiens to the invention of writing systems a few thousand years ago (many historians call this the “prehistoric” period), we evolved slowly. It didn't post problems because the environment also changed gradually. As we developed more and more tools that could affect nature (e.g., irrigation, roads, houses), the pace of environment changed and human society development quickened. The changes became exponential as we moved from the industrial revolution about 300 years ago to the current post-industrial society.

Yet our bodies and brains continued to evolve in the same slow pace of prehistoric times. One example: our diet. In prehistoric times humans fought with other animals for food. There were days that we couldn’t find any food. To survive, our bodies developed organs and mechanisms that encouraged us to consume more sugary food than needed so we could still live for several days without finding enough food. The food supply increased after development of farming. The onset of industrial revolution made farming more efficient and food more plentiful. Industrial revolution also provided humans with new food processing technology. In order to sell more food products, factories added to the food they sold large amount of additives that people liked (e.g., sugar, butter, salt, etc.). Because food was plentiful, people didn’t need to eat the substances they didn’t enjoy but good for their bodies (e.g., fiber). However, our bodies were too slow to adjust to these high-sugar and low fiber diets. As a result more and more people in the modern time are overweight and dietary related health issues mushroom, such as constipation, diabetes, etc. According to the CDC of USA, over 70% of US adults age 20 and over are overweight.

Our brains, like the rest of our bodies, evolved very slowly and could only cope with prehistoric environments, which required only basic analytical abilities and a small memory capacity. After the invention of writing, humans accumulated large amount of knowledge and pass it on from generation to generation. In the past few decades, humans have even developed high-speed and large-capacity computers. Our knowledge has increased dramatically, but our mental abilities have not increased at the same rate. For example, an ordinary person today has vastly more knowledge than Plato, Confucius and Buddha on diverse topics such as astronomy, personal hygiene, tools, geography, mathematics, etc., but there is no evidence that today’s Nobel prize winners and top scholars are more intelligent than Plato, Confucius, Buddha, and other scholars in ancient times. Compared with the ancient masters, few people today have put forward comparable ground-breaking theories and ideas.

This asymmetry (abundance of knowledge plus new technology versus our primitive mental capabilities) creates trouble for all. There are "experts" who specialize in studying the weaknesses of our mental abilities. They have also developed new technologies to exploit these weaknesses so as to alter our perception of facts (such as using software to modify pictures and videos). We call some of them public relations consultants, or derogatorily, propagandists.

Below is a video that demonstrates what artificial intelligence technology can do to create fake audios and videos in real time (video about 6 minutes long):

Just like we need to develop good dietary habits to make ourselves healthy again, we need to arm ourselves with knowledge and skills to combat deception in post-industrial societies – an environment that didn’t exist until recently and evolution didn’t prepare us to handle it.

Yet the vast majority of people falsely believe that they are naturally endowed with the ability to defend against the avalanche of deception created by well-paid consultants using sophisticated tools. They believe that they can easily separate facts from fake information. Very few people realize that they need to work hard to know the facts.