LAST week, the OpenAI research group announced it had created an artificial intelligence capable of generating hundreds of words of convincing text on almost any topic (see Fears of OpenAI’s super-trolling artificial intelligence are overblown). But the group said it wouldn’t be releasing the AI, because of its potential to be used as a fake news generator.
Fear over the power of fake news is widespread. Damian Collins, who heads a committee of UK MPs looking into the matter, this week proclaimed that “democracy is at risk from the malicious and relentless targeting of citizens with disinformation and personalised ‘dark adverts’ from unidentifiable sources”.
Advertisement
While the rise in poor-quality news sources and outright lies in recent years is regrettable, the panic over “fake news” – a term with multiple and sometimes contradictory meanings – isn’t yet wholly warranted.
Researchers are still struggling to find out whether people are influenced by disinformation, or if they instead seek it out because it confirms beliefs they already hold.
When they figure it out, you can be sure you will read about it in a rigorous, human-written report in New Scientist.
