A separate poll spearheaded by Center for Youth and AI and YouGov found that most teens believe lawmakers should make it a top priority to address the potential pitfalls of artificial intelligence. The biggest threats they viewed were misinformation and deep fakes.
Public disillusionment with the information landscape can decimate democracy. If the audience cannot discern truth from fiction, it will make it even harder to hold public figures accountable when they’re caught in the act.
Sometimes it makes for a good joke. Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve humorously denied that it was her dancing and partying with players Natisha Hiedeman and Courtney Williams, a viral moment that was captured on the StudBudz livestream at the WNBA All-Star weekend in July. The next morning after practice, Reeve reminded people that they shouldn’t believe everything they see on the internet. “That was AI,” she joked. “I was in bed.”
But at its worst, a world where reality is indistinguishable from misinformation could mean people won’t believe true events, and politicians can easily dismiss any unflattering information about them. Researchers describe this benefit to those who are doing the deceiving as the “liar’s dividend.”
In a pre-AI age, the public would press for damning video or audio evidence to prove a scandal actually happened. Now I worry that such evidence could be served up on a platter, and people would suspect the footage is fabricated.
Can you imagine if the nation shrugged after seeing the photograph of Emmett Till’s young, mutilated Black body? Or if they cried “fake news” at the picture of the so-called napalm girl, Kim Phuc, running and screaming from an aerial attack during Vietnam? Sadly, some people could dismiss the fact that children are suffering in Gaza because bot-generated images being circulated about the crisis have eroded their trust in what they see.