When news became digital at the turn of the century, I prophesied in “Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age” that people would seek affirmation over information, which the web readily provides, putting newspapers out of business and undermining democracy.
The second edition, “Interpersonal Divide in the Age of Machine,” documented how big data sliced the populace into consumer groups, dehumanizing them.
Here’s an excerpt:
Big data reduce the global millions of Internet users into nodes — interactive re-distribution points — or little people, using personal, professional, educational, governmental, psychological, sociological and, most importantly, consumer demographics and psychographics to make seemingly instantaneous correlations of what each user-node likes, dislikes and is most likely to buy.
My 2017 book predicted that we would neglect ethical principles established in time, culture and place and replace those with machine values:
1. IMPORTANCE OF SELF over others.
2. BOREDOM over attentiveness.
3. OVERSHARING over privacy.
4. ENTERTAINMENT over knowledge.
5. INTERRUPTION over interaction.
6. DISTRACTION over concentration.
7. INCIVILITY over empathy.
8. AFFIRMATION over information.
9. BELIEF over fact.
10. ON DEMAND FANTASY over intimacy.
Technology gives us what we want, not what we need.
Devoid of fact-based science and informed social science, media personalities easily spread conspiracy theories. The Associated Press notes that these wild concoctions have “proven lucrative for those cashing in on unfounded medical claims, investment proposals or fake news websites.”
Now comes artificial intelligence and with it, automation bias (reinforcing stereotypes) and hallucinations (outright fabrications), leading to political sectarianism — hating your adversaries more than loving your own party and designating “others” as immoral to justify actions against them.
That culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
ChatGPT and other large language models, trained on big data and social media, lie fluently with authority, knowing the public has forgotten how to verify claims or even cares anymore about doing so.
As such, Donald J. Trump — who told 30,573 lies over four years of his presidency — is the ideal candidate in the age of AI. His genius is manipulation. Technology is his friend, altering or swapping images of crowd size to support his exaggerations.
Consider the June 2024 debate, in which he fabricated achievements of his administration and gaslighted the audience about Jan. 6, claiming a relatively small number of people actually breached the Capitol “and in many cases were ushered in by the police.”
It doesn’t matter that the news media covered the insurrection with video, audio, photographs and testimonials, as thousands of people descended on Capitol Hill, engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police. Many watching the debate overlooked that and other Trump lies while President Joe Biden, 81, struggled to recall the stats and facts of his administration. He over-prepped, imagining viewers still cared about data, however inaccurate or hyped.
Polls showed that 67 percent of debate watchers say that Trump triumphed whereas 33 percent said the President did.
In the months before the election, AI will continue to spread fabrications through deepfake productions pilfering a person’s voice and image and lip-syncing any lie or invention. TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, X and other platforms inform the public more than traditional media, with half of U.S. adults relying on those platforms for news.
A good portion of those posts are bogus, mimicking what viewers already believe, as a matter of clickbait and text prompt rather than fact and check.
As the Associated Press reports, “Artificial intelligence is supercharging the threat of election disinformation worldwide, making it easy for anyone with a smartphone and a devious imagination to create fake – but convincing – content aimed at fooling voters.”
A recent survey finds that 73 percent of Americans believe it is “very” or “somewhat” likely that AI will be used to manipulate social media, influencing the outcome of the presidential election. They also are aware of deepfakes and targeted use of AI to deceive voters.
As long as they are affirmed, anything goes.
Studies have shown that AI has advanced so quickly without human oversight that it is now able to deceive people without being programmed to do just that. Chatbots even can act on their own, fabricating news, uploading divisive messages, and impersonating candidates across media platforms.
When lies pollute the metaverse, truth becomes debatable and perception, reality.
Little can be done at this point, apart from requiring media and technology literacy in schools and hoping future generations correct the errors of our algorithmic ways.
When society cannot tell fact from factoid, the end of information is near, ensuring that we get the governments that we deserve.
——
Michael Bugeja is the author of “Living Media Ethics”
(Routledge/Taylor & Francis) and “Interpersonal Divide
in the Age of the Machine”
