Science, Technology & the Future
Futurist Jamais Cascio on how fake news, alternative facts, and #misinformation is evolving – as well as frameworks to help us wade through the fake news and make sense of huge amounts of chaos in a rapidly changing world.
Pew Research ‘The Future of Truth & Misinformation Online’ : https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2017/10/19/the-future-of-truth-and-misinformation-online/
“The power and diversity of very low-cost technologies allowing unsophisticated users to create believable ‘alternative facts’ is increasing rapidly. It’s important to note that the goal of these tools is not necessarily to create consistent and believable alternative facts, but to create plausible levels of doubt in actual facts. The crisis we face about ‘truth’ and reliable facts is predicated less on the ability to get people to believe the wrong thing as it is on the ability to get people to doubt the right thing. The success of Donald Trump will be a flaming signal that this strategy works, alongside the variety of technologies now in development (and early deployment) that can exacerbate this problem. In short, it’s a successful strategy, made simpler by more powerful information technologies.”
We speak a bit about AI language modelling, the fact that it doesn’t understand stuff, and the possibility of creating AI that actually understands stuff. Highlighted in the news recently language modelling (i.e. GPT3) is being used to help generate fake news.. Interestingly ‘a college student used GPT-3 to write fake blog posts and ended up at the top of Hacker News’: https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/16/21371049/gpt3-hacker-news-ai-blog
Frameworks for helping understand wickedly complex information – VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) vs BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, and Incomprehensible):
Jamais’ BANI piece on Medium “Facing the Age of Chaos”:
https://medium.com/@cascio/facing-the-age-of-chaos-b00687b1f51d
Quote: “There has always been uncertainty and complexity in the world, and we have devised reasonably effective systems to figure out and adapt to this everyday disorder. From weighty institutions like “law” and “religion” to habituated norms and values, even to ephemeral business models and political strategies, much of what we think of as composing “civilization” is ultimately a set of cultural implements that allow us to domesticate change. If we can make disruptive processes understandable, we hope, maybe we can keep their worst implications in check.”
And on BANI “It doesn’t have to be that way. The BANI framework offers a lens through which to see and structure what’s happening in the world. At least at a surface level, the components of the acronym might even hint at opportunities for response: brittleness could be met by resilience and slack; anxiety can be eased by empathy and mindfulness; nonlinearity would need context and flexibility; incomprehensibility asks for transparency and intuition. These may well be more reactions than solutions, but they suggest the possibility that responses can be found.”
The Institute for the Future:
– Digital Intelligence Lab: https://www.iftf.org/partner-with-iftf/research-labs/digital-intelligence-lab/
– The Human Consequences of Computational Propaganda: https://www.iftf.org/disinfoeffects/
#FakeNews #AlternativeFacts #Misinformation
Jamais Cascio is a distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future: https://www.iftf.org
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