Is it a confirmation bias thing? I wonder if people are more willing to accept AI images as true if they already believe the thing they see is happening and to what extent they would look at any fictional media critically if they accept it as fact. People believed tabloid photos were true too.

Confirmation bias is for sure part of it (as I said before, the "AI" of this era are just bias optimizers) but there's something else at play in terms of how we're influenced as culture to a) accept certain kinds of evidence as valid, & b) disregard collective truth making in favor of power & vibes.