As much as volumes and volumes of valid info are shared (courtesy of social media), the plague of misinformation needs to be cured of, which is spread by none other than the same platforms. The volumes of misinformation have grown to such levels that it’s almost impossible to wrestle with fake news, a key ingredient in today’s “misinformation- flow” across the world.
Misinformation and fake news is nothing new. In 1835, the New York Sun published a series of articles that talked of a human civilization on the moon. This was more than mere sensationalism and as more and more copies of the newspaper was sold, resulting in the New York Sun establishing itself as a leading newspaper. At that time sensationalism and fake news were spreading so much in the newspaper industry that as a result of loss of trust on the news being published, readers were increasingly calling for a publication that could be trusted.
The New York Times was born.
Fake news is everywhere. Not only in developed markets but in other parts of the world as well. As recently as February 7, Indian Union Minister of Information and
Broadcasting Anurag Singh Thakur said publishers (need to) take corrective measures voluntarily “…on being pointed out that fake news has been published or misinformation disseminated. In the second step, (media) associations play a role in stopping such news. The ministry comes in third.”
Speaking to CNBC in 2018, Edelman CEO said: ‘Fake news is cancer in the
bloodstream’. He adds: “People want brands to intervene in cases of fake news and data misuse. Trust in social media is at an all-time low in the developed countries”.
Control of online misinformation gained a new urgency during the COVID Pandemic as the misinfo (which led many of us astray and into the information-wild) was being spewed from many corners of online space. Not only a raging Pandemic, the general public also had to fight an Infodemic, of unfathomable origins.
A study (Spread of Misinformation About Face Masks and COVID-19 by Automated Software on Facebook-By John W. Ayers, PhD, Brian Chu, Zechariah Zhu et al) published in JAMA Internal Medicine showed “social media platforms were the primary drivers of COVID-19 misinformation, spreading myths and seeding public health distrust exponentially faster than human users could..” Mary Van Beusekom in CIDRAP News June 8, 2021).
The online fake news is mostly powered by AI bots. With the sudden entry of ChatGPT, the bot-led fake news industry became supercharged. AI bots such as ChatGPT are mentioned not only for their deep language capacities and human-like conversations but also for their dark powers.
“The proliferation of online misinformation and propaganda has meant an uphill battle for fact-checkers worldwide, who have to sift through and verify vast quantities of information during complex or fast-moving situations…That task has become even harder with the advent of chatbots using large language models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which can produce natural-sounding text at the click of a button, essentially automating the production of misinformation.” – Lydia Morrish in “Fact-Checkers Are Scrambling to Fight Disinformation With AI” -www.wired.co.uk
The sneaky production of misinformation by humans has been automated with AI bots. The entry of ChatGPT stands as a watershed that takes the deadly presence of bots to a new level. Though ChatGPT was initially not seen as a fake news machine, with time, it was clear that it is here to stay as a provider of misinformation as well, unfortunately.
How good will ChatGPT be in this? Will it be equal to the bots, better or worse?
Shockingly, it’s way better!
Alex Mahadevan is the Director of @mediawise. On February 3, @AlexMahadevan
tweeted: “This morning I created a fictional newspaper, complete with four staffers, an about us page, editorial standards, a corrections policy and an article falsely alleging corruption in local government — in less than 10 minutes using ChatGPT and GAN for headshots. #NewsLiteracyWeek”
@AlexMahadevan goes on to produce screenshots of ChatGPT-created (in less than 10 minutes) newspaper.
The proverbial wolf is not crying at the door anymore…it just walked in.
