I’ve just listened to a podcast given by Sam Harris where he has voiced concerns about the ability of AI in the future (and he mentioned 18 months’ time) of the danger of 1 person/small group of people to create false information and create something which is false and detrimental to our society.
He gave the example of such negative mindset(s) being able to request AI to create a large number of documentaries using selected images, videos of Hitler speaking in German, in the style of a reputable journalist proving that the Holocaust did not exist.
We could get to point where people will assume that everything is fake online. What then? Having said that, I would argue that we are already at the point where anyone with an opinion can air their position and if vocal enough, people will listen without questioning. The internet is a great pool of information, from the very good (eg published studies in peer reviewed journals) to the opinions of those who think they know best / are only posting their thoughts from paid scripts.
Will we then only give credence to something if it has come from the say the BBC or CNN?
Will search engines be able to charge us for using their “Premium” service which has fact checked all the intel therein? Or even so, how do we know that they haven’t been hacked to have said information changed ?
Will we trust who we are chatting to is a real person unless we already know them?
Very few of us have the time to check sources, so will we then revert to using libraries with real world books? At the moment, I don’t think there are any solutions on the horizon, but forewarned is forearmed they say. I’m going to be even more careful than usual online
