Why We Need a 'Truth Campaign' for the AI Era Gaurav Laroia, Charlotte Slaiman / Jul 2, 2026Gaurav Laroia and Charlotte Slaiman both previously served at the Federal Trade Commission. They recently published a memo, “Settlement Wins Against Big Tech Should Underwrite Digital Resilience Funds,” at the Federation of American Scientists. As former attorney-advisors to Federal Trade Commission leadership, we worked hard to turn the page on the era when Big Tech could write off fines for alleged lawbreaking as just the “cost of doing business.” We fought to impose real, substantive limits on corporate data collection and to change the extractive business models fueling digital platforms. But our time in the trenches also taught us a hard truth: while strong injunctive relief and market reforms are vital, enforcement alone isn’t enough. To truly protect the public, legal and regulatory action should be paired with a massive, proactive public education campaign. Today, as the honeymoon phase for generative AI ends and state attorneys general launch mounting lawsuits against chatbot developers, we have the momentary opportunity to do just that: fund a “Truth Campaign” for the AI era. The scale of these compounding digital harms resembles an environmental disaster rather than a series of unconnected consumer injuries. Pew polling shows that half of Americans are more concerned than excited about AI, and most doubt their ability to tell whether words or images came from a machine. Gen Z seems to be increasingly anxious about this technology’s impact on their lives. A recent Gallup poll shows their levels of optimism plummeting about how helpful the technology can be in education and especially as deployed in the workforce. During the social media era, tech companies used algorithmic feeds to hijack our attention and our outrage. Generative AI, with its ability to mimic human