Home Concepts Communication Technological Acceleration: The Crisis of Information, Reality and One’s Sense of Self

Technological Acceleration: The Crisis of Information, Reality and One’s Sense of Self

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Protecting Ourselves from AI Generated Misinformation

The Notre Dame Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership suggests four ways in which to protect us all from misinformation.
Four Ways to Stop the Spread (of Misinformation) // News // Notre Dame Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership // University of Notre Dame (nd.edu)

Inoculate.
As the saying goes, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” While it is difficult to counter misinformation directly, there are promising ways to prevent it from taking hold in the first place. For example, a recent study showed that it is possible to practice a kind of “inoculation” for fake news. Just as with medical inoculation, the idea is to give a small or weakened dosage of the harmful substance.

This allows the patient—or in this case the reader or viewer—to develop immunity before the true threat appears. You can get out ahead of conspiracy theories and fake news by showing examples of them and training employees or students to spot them by their look and feel. Schools, colleges, and other organizations are already using immersive games like Bad News to help users experience fake news through the process of creating it.

Foster a healthy news diet.
Another step you can take is to curate high quality fact-based information for your organization. By providing reliable information early and often, you can help members of your organization find the “signal” of truth within the “noise” of misinformation. This can also help information hobbits to step outside their comfort zone or even prevent epistemic bubbles from forming.

Nudge others toward a truth-focused mindset.
As strange as it may sound, we often interact with information without focusing on whether the information is truthful or not. We may like, share, post, or forward information because we find it entertaining, interesting, or emotionally resonant even if we have doubts about its truth. Thus, one surprisingly effective strategy for countering fake news is to simply redirect a reader’s attention toward the information’s accuracy.

Studies have shown that a simple “nudge” asking social media users to rate an article’s accuracy or asking users to pause and “explain how you know that the headline is true or false” can cause them to be more circumspect about the articles they are willing to share. And in another lab study, psychologists were able to arm study participants against repeated false claims by asking them to behave like “fact checkers.”

Keep ethics in view when sharing information.

Is it immoral to share fake news? Most of us would say so, but one study revealed that we can easily lose sight of this fact. Repeated exposure to a fake news headline caused study participants to rate it as less unethical to publish and share. While major societal changes may be required to restore trust and fix what is broken in our media landscape, we can each play a part in improving it by holding one another accountable and by recognizing that we are performing a moral act each time we participate in the spread of information, even if it involves just a few clicks of our mouse.

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