Synthetic Voices, Synthetic Faces: Trust, Identity, and Communication Integrity in the Age of AI

Artificial intelligence has fundamentally altered human and cultural exchange. Technologies that generate or manipulate voices and faces now produce highly realistic synthetic media, increasingly blurring the boundary between authentic and artificial communication. As deepfakes and voice cloning become more sophisticated, they fuel disinformation, challenge established social customs, and raise important questions about how identity is negotiated and trust is established in digitally mediated environments.The stakes are especially high in intercultural contexts, where voices, faces, accents, and visual cues function as key markers of identity, belonging, and social positioning. When the authentic human voice and face, the core markers of individual identity and social bonds, can be perfectly mimicked by an algorithm, the potential for disrupting intercultural understanding is significant. The proliferation of synthetic media therefore challenges long-standing cultural norms in ways that extend well beyond individual deception.Parallel concerns arise for the credibility of scientific and health communication. Synthetic voices and faces can be used to impersonate experts, fabricate scientific statements, or circulate misleading medical information, with the potential to erode public trust in institutions and evidence-based knowledge. Responding to these challenges requires a human-centred approach to digital citizenship—one that equips individuals and communities with the ethical awareness, media literacy, and civic responsibility needed to navigate AI-mediated communication. At the same time, communities are already developing new strategies to interpret, authenticate, and respond to AI-generated media, raising important questions about evolving digital literacies and communicative norms.This Research Topic explores how emerging synthetic media technologies are reshaping social behaviour, societal norms, and the exchange of information. We welcome manuscripts that move beyond general AI ethics to examine the specific impact of synthetic media on local identities, inter-ethnic relations, intercultural communication, and the credibility of scientific and health information. We encourage interdisciplinary contributions employing qualitative, quantitative, experimental, computational, and ethnographic methods.Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:• ethical and communicative implications of deepfakes and voice cloning• authenticity, trust, and credibility in AI-mediated communication• risks of AI-generated media for scientific credibility and health misinformation• synthetic media and intercultural or intergroup relations• linguistic and visual markers of identity in AI-generated content• cultural perspectives on AI-generated identities and personas• the role of accents, voices, and faces in digital identity construction• digital literacy and strategies for identifying synthetic media• socio-technical transformations of communicative norms and cultural practices• policy, governance, and regulatory responses to synthetic media• methodological approaches for studying synthetic voices and faces.We welcome a range of article types, including Original Research, Perspective, Conceptual Analysis, Methods, Policy and Practice Review, Case Report, and Brief Research Report. Topic editors: Douglas Ashwell, Anastassia Zabrodskaja Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/79059/synthetic-voices-synthetic-faces-trust-identity-and-communication-integrity-in-the-age-of-ai