Honestly, the right wing politicians in the USA thrust us into a post truth world early, before AI had a chance to.
So it’s a recent phenomenon that people have expected news to be neutral. Historically, everyone figured there was always some sort of bias. When I say recent, I mean the past 30 or 40 years. And news always had some kind of falsehood to it, either as a tilted analysis, omission of details, or even straight lies.
I think it’s more the arrival of social media that allowed bad actors to get their bogus news out so much faster. By reducing the barrier to entry, organizations that could fail if seen as illegitimate are no longer the gatekeepers of information. Of course, that wasn’t a perfect system anyway (see Fox News), but it prevented things from catching like wildfire.
The 24-hour news cycle didn’t help, either
But fuck US politicians, right wing ones particularly so
Or you know, the first people that decided to lie, cheat or steal? So all of humanity.
No, not all humanity. Yes, lying has always existed, but simple lies are not how we got to the post-truth era. I am blaming post-truth era here on USA’s right wing. The sheer number of fabrications that lead to unjust action is astounding. It’s basically the whole platform and has millions of Americans engaged in outright harm to each other based on those lies. They take advantage of many Americans inability (or unwillingness) to see through the deceit. AI will make that worse, but these guys have sometimes taken over the country with it.
This touches two of my biggest concerns with artificial intelligence. A flood of AI generated fake content, and people outsourcing their thinking to AI tools.
I mean, if it wasn’t their AI tools they were outsourcing thinking to, it was the “smartest” person in their social circle. The question is if AI is smarter than that person for the average social circle
But yeah, fake info is terrifying
Outsourcing in more ways, than what another person will do for you. I think the Google Maps example tells exactly what’s going to come true when AI lets you easily skip any task that requires thinking, such as writing your homework.
I recently visited an Australian dog breed info site. Most of the information there looked alright and very detailed. Pictures, history of the dog breed, physical traits, personality, uses, random tidbits, … It all looked well put together and reliable.
Until I accidentally stumbled on the Khala dog page. You can read it here
It’s a Pakistan hairless dog, that and the picture are about the only correct thing on there.
The history is basically the entire storyline of Starcraft, which might or might not have Khala dogs. Further down in the text it is also referred to as a horse, and a South-American bird of prey. Both of which I have no clue where it got that from, I did a very extensive search on South-American birds of prey and no Khala to be found. And it randomly switches back to dogs in-between.
So now I can’t trust anything on that site without it being verified through other means. Found more minor mistakes too after doublechecking other breeds, that I would’ve accepted without questions if I hadn’t stumbled across this gem.
So yeah, I find using AI for science/information purposes without doublechecking it by actual, human experts quite scary. This is just a dog breed site without much consequences, but I’m sure similar things happen (and slip through the mazes) with actual news too.
That’s… That’s quite hilarious, to be honest.
With some of these technologies, it reminds me of times I go “I can’t possibly do X unless I have Y”, where Y is some fancy new tool. But then I find a video of some old dude doing the exact same thing with a couple rocks and a stick he found in the woods.
You can do lots of propaganda using AI, but you can also use lots of propaganda using a room full of Africans making a few pennies per hour. We know that nation-states have spent massive amounts of resources on propaganda, including directly influencing the Internet. That sort of resource utilization is just as mind blowing as AI, you could be surrounded by people who agree with you and be the only real person in the crowd, and that should be terrifying.
