Disinformation as a tool of persuasion, conflict, and weaponless warfare is ancient. Institutionalized, state owned and run disinformation finds its roots in the interwar period. The evolution of information technology during the intervening half a century has dramatically lowered the threshold for producing and distributing disinformation. In this paper we argue that the epistemically corrosive impact of widescale accesses to AI tools must be taken into consideration when decision-makers select the most appropriate countermeasures for countering disinformation