Doubt as critical to sense-making
We have reached that place with AI where nothing in media can be trusted.
No image, no video, no story to be trusted.
Sometime in the next 12 months a news story will break that will shock, yet it will be fake. Before being proven as fake, millions will fall for it. Once proven as fake, millions are unlikely to be swayed that it was fake.
Perhaps this has already happened in the blowback from the pandemic. Millions of people have fallen under the spell of fake science. The polarity is to such a degree that families have been divided. (I recognise the irony of what I write — some reading this will believe the science is fake around the need for vaccination, while others will believe the science is truthful around vaccination.)
Yet the pandemic years have nothing on what is about to become normal.
When AI can, in the hands of anyone with minimal skill, manipulate years of data, imagery and video content to make a story appear real, we have entered dangerous territory.
We might consider the following if we want to avoid falling into the trap.
- Notice the triggers that have you flare up with outrage. Pull back. Take a deep breath.
- Is it true? How can you know it is absolutely true? Were you present when it happened?
- Given you do not know it is absolutely true, hold your doubt as critical to sense-making.
- Cultivate news sources who have demonstrated, over a long time, integrity. Be sure to select a range of these, varying from the left to the right of the political spectrum.
- Invest in sense-making skills. Including exploring the opposing arguments. What would persuade you you are wrong? Without this exploration, we easily fall into fundamentalism.
Photo Taken February 26th 2023
