What if everything on the web is fake?

I remember one of the last Monks presentations I did, which was for a large hotel chain brand in Milan, Italy. It was a very mixed crowd and when we opened up for questions I received a critical remark. A lady stood up and said “so everything is going to be fake and you are proud of playing a role in just that?”

I could have started a discussion on "what is real in the first place" and who decides that but I answered instead with “yes, I think we will move to a world where 99% of what we see will be generated”. (purposefully leaving out the word(s) fake/real 😉). I also added that I think it is very important that people need to change their own behavior, especially in the short term. As soon as you see something that wow’s you, you should wonder if this is real. I try to be very critical these days, especially when I see stuff go viral on platforms like X or Instagram.

As an example: there was a video clip going viral on X, of an active UFC fighter who said some pretty insane things about H*tler. I was flabbergasted and went to the comments, the original podcast Youtube link was posted so I decided to make the effort and look with my own eyes at the part where this was discussed, before rushing to judgement. Why? Because it could have easily been an AI-generated clip and it would have completed destroyed this persons character and career, if so. I was even more flabbergasted to see it was indeed real and he said more stupid sh*t, so yes now I do have my actual judgement 😅.

Now, 9-months or so after this lady made the comment, a new video model has released which triggered me to write this piece. Bytedance, TikTok’s parent company, has released their videomodel called OmniHuman-1. It has the capability to generate incredible videos from just a picture and text. And yes it was absolutely trained on all your cute and innocent dance videos 😉.

I highly recommend clicking this link as I can’t embed videos directly in here, the example is scary:

We are already seeing it with text, I bet a big percentage of all the text you consume on the internet today is either fully AI-generated or supported by it. Interestingly enough, there is the "dead internet theory". Which is a (conspiracy) theory that emerged in the late 2010s, suggesting that the internet is now mostly populated by bots and AI, with real human interaction being minimal. It claims that this shift has transformed the internet into a controlled environment, diminishing its role as a space for genuine human connection and exchange.

Might this become a reality? Maybe. So let’s think about this for a moment, there are a couple of things.

First off, what indeed is real? Why is something that looks incredibly beautiful and makes you feel a certain way, not real, if it is AI generated? I don’t think the question is if it is generated or not, but if it actually does something to the viewer and is shaped based on a great idea or insight. People might say, but it won’t never be something new as it is trained on things that already exist. Well, I think that is how creativity works in general. You get inspired by 1, 10 or a million different things and turn that into something new.

I also want to highlight the power of AI in finding unconventional and new ways by sharing this example of AlphaGo. AlphaGo is an AI developed by Google DeepMind to play the board game Go. In its 2016 match against world champion Lee Sedol, the AI AlphaGo played Move 37, an unexpected and seemingly bizarre move with only a 0.001% probability of being played by a human. Initially thought to be a mistake, it later proved to be genius, reshaping the game and leading to AlphaGo’s victory. The move was so shocking that Sedol left the room, visibly shaken. This moment became legendary because it showed that AI could think in ways beyond human intuition, unlocking new strategies even top players had never imagined.

Highly recommend watching the short documentary about it. You can feel the shock and awe in the room when it happens:

The second thing is pretty obvious, the impact of possible mass deepfake campaigns on politics, media and so forth. While this danger is clear, I don’t hear many people about the other side of this.

How does our world look when nobody trusts anything anymore? We will get to a place soon (as shown above with OmniHuman-1) that you can’t trust video/photo “evidence” any longer. So how can people effectively communicate truths?

I don’t want to go too much in doom-thinking scenarios but it is important to keep in mind the effect of this. So not only the possible negative of fake news, but also that trust will be completely lost. How do institutions, schools, governments, healthcare professionals etc, communicate their truths is going to be a massive challenge. Something that already has become more challenging since COVID, will be accelerated.

To end on a positive, I do hope and believe blockchain technology can play an important role here. So that we can at least verify that something you are looking at (a picture, or video) is coming from the actual source itself and is untouched.

Reuters, in collaboration with Canon and Starling Lab, has developed a proof of concept that embeds cryptographic signatures into photos at the moment of capture, storing them on a public blockchain for verification.

This system creates a secure, transparent record that logs any edits, preventing unauthorized changes and helping news consumers distinguish between real and manipulated visuals. Successfully tested on the ground in the Ukraine, this approach shows promise despite challenges like processing speed and editorial flexibility.

As you know by now, I am an optimist and although innovation and technology is (almost) never perfect I do think we can also innovate our way out of these very real challenges.

The business of the NBA and why American Sports is so intriguing

I have been a big fan of American Sports and their system since I was a kid. I do strongly believe that my drive for travel and living in different countries. (including the US) started because I started playing baseball at age 10/11 or so.

Baseball opened me up to the world of American Sports culture. I wanted the caps, I wanted to be Derek Jeter (the legendary short stop of the New York Yankees), I wanted the Under Armour long sleeve shirts (before Europe knew about Under Armour), we stayed up late watching the world series with my fellow baseball friends and more.

In 2018, when I moved to Toronto I fell in love with basketball too. Partially because the city was fueled by it and partially for business reasons as we later invested in a basketball agency (representing NBA players), got to know the players (Shoutout Jamal Murray, Dillon Brooks, Oshae Brissett) and started watching lots of their games. The Raptors actually won the NBA championship that year, which was a great time!!

Now let’s look at the business of the American Sports league and how it is so different from what we are used to in Europe. The NBA operates as a franchise system, where teams are independently owned but governed by the league under a centralized structure. While teams have autonomy in their operations, the NBA controls major league-wide decisions, including TV contracts, sponsorships, and financial rules like the salary cap and revenue sharing. This is why you sometimes see these monstrous deals happen for kit manufacturing (they just extended for 12-years with Nike) and tv rights (which they also just extended for 11-years, worth 76 Billion dollars).

Another interesting element of this is their revenue sharing model, which is designed to promote financial balance among teams, ensuring that smaller-market franchises remain competitive. A portion of league-wide revenue—mainly from national TV deals, sponsorships, and merchandising—is pooled and distributed to all teams. Additionally, high-earning teams contribute a percentage of their local revenue, which is then redistributed to lower-revenue teams. This system, combined with the salary cap and luxury tax, helps maintain competitive parity and reinforces the idea that a stronger overall NBA brand benefits every franchise, not just the biggest markets.

Because of this structure, the league prioritizes the overall brand and competitive balance, sometimes making decisions that benefit the NBA as a whole rather than a single team. This ensures long-term growth, higher revenue, and a stronger global presence, ultimately benefiting all teams collectively.

In comes the news: The Dallas Mavericks traded Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers. (this tweet has 100 million views fyi 🤣)

What good to know is this:

• Luka Dončić is a current top-3 NBA player, aged 25, about to enter his prime.

• He is putting up record numbers across the board, beating even LeBron James in some categories (compared to James at that age).

• He just brought the Dallas Mavericks to the finals last year, which he did loose.

• The only person to have a higher average in points, assists and rebounds in the playoffs is non-other than Michael Jordan.

• Many say Luka Dončić could become a top-10 player in the history of the NBA, his potential is that big.

• In return the Mavericks got Antony Davis, who is a superstar in his own right. But also almost 32 and has a big history of injuries.

You might ask yourself now, if you are the Dallas Mavericks and you have him, why would you trade him away? Literally nobody is understanding this trade from a pure basketball, franchise perspective. And yes, in the NBA players get traded. Meaning you offer other players, and draft picks, in return for the player you want to have. Not like in football (soccer) where you pay transfer fees. To give a football analogy of this trade purely from a players perspective, you can compare it to trading Virgil van Dijk (defensive force but older) with Erling Haaland (who is the young superstar with endless potential still).

Let’s zoom out and look at this while keeping this sentence from earlier in mind: the league prioritizes the overall brand and competitive balance, sometimes making decisions that benefit the NBA as a whole rather than a single team.

Some business facts:

• The Dallas Mavericks is a team in a fairly small market, with a population of about 1.3 million people.

• The Los Angeles Lakers are one of the (if not the) biggest brands and market in the NBA. Especially outside of the United States, the Lakers brand is gigantic.

• The Lakers currently have “the face of the league” in LeBron James, aka the one who carries the torch on behalf of the NBA to the rest of the world and arguably the best player to ever play the game. But, he is 40 and won’t last much longer.

So you have a superstar in a small market and your biggest market is soon without a superstar. Where do you think the NBA, as a whole, would benefit more from?

Add to that, that the NBA has changed a lot in terms of players and viewership. It has become a way bigger game outside of the United States compared to baseball or American Football. The biggest stars in the NBA come from outside of the US: Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece), Nikola Jokic (Serbia), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Canada), Victor Wembanyama (France) and of course Luka Dončić (Slovenia), plus there are more.

Problem solved, no? You put an international superstar who has all the potential to be the next “face of the league” next to LeBron James, the ideal mentor who can prep you for that role on and off the court.

The opposite also happened, allegedly. In 2011, a big trade was proposed that would have sent Chris Paul to the Los Angeles Lakers to play alongside Kobe Bryant. However, then-NBA Commissioner David Stern, acting on behalf of the league which owned the New Orleans Hornets at the time, vetoed the trade.

The official reason given was "basketball reasons," suggesting the trade wasn't fair for all teams involved. However, many believe the real reason was to prevent the Lakers from becoming too dominant by adding another superstar. One team becoming too dominant is not good for viewership numbers (because it gets boring if everyone will know who will win it eventually), ticket sales and so forth. Again making total sense..

I think it is fascinating that these massive leagues are being run as true businesses, true brands. Something a lot of leagues/teams can learn major lessons from in Europe. Same reason why it is so fascinating how the Major League Soccer was able to make a deal with David Beckham (2007), which later got them Lionel Messi (2023). If you want to hear that story in a later newsletter, drop me an email!

For me personally, as I have not grown up in one of the NBA cities, I have always been a fan of players and the biggest one being LeBron James. Having lived in Toronto (Raptors) and Los Angeles (Lakers), I follow them both. So as a fan, I love the fact that the Lakers have Luka for the next 10-years or so and I can’t wait to see what he and LeBron can do together for the next year(s).

Here are some of the latest announcements and other things that I found interesting this week (underscore means clickable!):

• OpenAI has released their highly anticipated o3-Mini model and a new agent capability called Deep Research. In Sam Altman’s own words: “my very approximate vibe is that it can do a single-digit percentage of all economically valuable tasks in the world, which is a wild milestone.”

• Our very own, Dutch, ASML is the most important builder of chip development machines and damn their tech is so so impressive. Here is an incredible video that shows exactly how small the details on these chips are. In general, the goal is to fit as much power on as little space as possible. 5nm, as shown here was the norm. ASML: hold my beer! They can now go to 2nm. 2nm =0,000002 millimeters 🤯.

• I love movies, it is an art form. Next to me being a Christopher Nolan fan, I am also a Denis Villeneuve fan. A movie that does not get talked about enough is Sicario. The acting, the sound editing, the vibe throughout the whole movie is incredible. The reason I am sharing this, is because I saw this video on Instagram explaining the shot selection of a thrilling scene very very well. Go watch the movie this weekend!

• Quote of the week coming via my friend @startuplibrary. Don’t rely on motivation, rely on discipline.

  

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^{Who am I and why you should be here:}

^{Over the years, I’ve navigated industries like advertising, music, sports, and gaming, always chasing what’s next and figuring out how to make it work for brands, businesses, and myself. From strategizing for global companies to experimenting with the latest tech, I’ve been on a constant journey of learning and sharing.}

^{This newsletter is where I’ll bring all of that together—my raw thoughts, ideas, and emotions about AI, blockchain, gaming, Gen Z & Alpha, and life in general. No perfection, just me being as real as it gets.}

^{Every week (or whenever inspiration hits), I’ll share what’s on my mind: whether it’s deep dives into tech, rants about the state of the world, or random experiments that I got myself into. The goal? To keep it valuable, human, and worth your time.}