Evil genius ascendant

Rene Descartes, at the conclusion of Meditation I On The First Philosophy, Elizabeth S. Haldane translation at Sacred Texts:

I shall then suppose, not that God who is supremely good
and the fountain of truth, but some evil genius not less
powerful than deceitful, has employed his whole energies in
deceiving me; I shall consider that the heavens, the earth,
colours, figures, sound, and all other external things are
nought but the illusions and dreams of which this genius has
availed himself in order to lay traps for my credulity; I
shall consider myself as having no hands, no eyes, no flesh,
no blood, nor any senses, yet falsely believing myself to
possess all these things; I shall remain obstinately attached
to this idea, and if by this means it is not in my power to
arrive at the knowledge of any truth, I may at least do what
is in my power [i.e. suspend my judgment], and with firm
purpose avoid giving credence to any false thing, or being
imposed upon by this arch deceiver, however powerful and
deceptive he may be. But this task is a laborious one, and
insensibly a certain lassitude leads me into the course of my
ordinary life. And just as a captive who in sleep enjoys an
imaginary liberty, when he begins to suspect that his liberty
is but a dream, fears to awaken, and conspires with these
agreeable illusions that the deception may be prolonged, so
insensibly of my own accord I fall back into my former
opinions, and I dread awakening from this slumber, lest the
laborious wakefulness which would follow the tranquillity of
this repose should have to be spent not in daylight, but in
the excessive darkness of the difficulties which have just
been discussed.

It is no longer just a thought experiment in an era of deep fakes, AI-generated media, Neuralink and related computer-brain interfacing. The Deus deceptor has entered the battlefield… Deception has always been so deployed in war; though now, with such vividness, the perceiving subject is left epistemologically adrift like never before, when simply turning on “the news”.

Take, for instance, the current controversy over a charred baby or sick puppy…

Palestine Chronicle – A Sick Puppy is not a Charred Baby: How Israel Utilized AI to Frame Palestinians

404 Media – AI Images Detectors Are Being Used to Discredit the Real Horrors of War