I’ve had this post in mind for a while without actually getting around to writing any of it. But I felt it would fit in well here, following on from my last post.
We are supposedly better informed today than we were twenty, fifty, a hundred years ago. I’m not sure I agree, though. Certainly, there is no lack of information available, and access to it couldn’t be any easier. In fact whatever you want to know, you can find it online. Anything. Whether it be true or false, it’s there online. And because all this information is easily available, and because billions of people have access to the internet, it can be spread incredibly far and wide in a tiny amount of time. It is certainly not just AI that has led to this. The internet was full of misinformation long before AI was an issue.
I heard a few years ago that university students were forbidden to use Wikipedia as a source for essays and research. The people who add information to Wikipedia do not have to be any kind of expert. There is a certain amount of checking, but I don’t know how rigorous it is. Certainly, it is not unknown for mistakes and deliberate falsehoods to be added. This is why I have never used it as an information source. At best I have found what I might be looking for on there, but then gone to a reliable site to check it. For medical information, for example, I would use the UK’s NHS site. For historical information, I might use a top university website, or a large museum’s. A site where the information will have been uploaded by experts and specialists.
YouTube seems to be ridiculously popular with huge numbers of people as an information source. There are, of course, YouTube channels by very reputable people and institutions, but also a huge number of ones which exist solely to spread misinformation and total lies. And while it may be easy to tell some of the bad ones from the good, that still leaves large numbers that might or might not be reputable.
The same is true of social media. Countless sites run by Holocaust deniers, Nazi sympathisers, and every sort of conspiracy theorist from Flat Earthers to those who believe the world is run by paedophile alien lizard people. Again, while most of these are obviously what they are, many are less so.
Why so many sites spreading disinformation? The first reason is that there are many people who believe the crazy conspiracy theories. I’m not getting into the hows and whys of this, but the psychology is interesting. But the second reason is money. Many of these sites are monetised, so that the more clicks they get, the more views, the more money the site owner ‘earns’. Probably a feeling of power, too.
And to return to AI briefly, if anyone is in any doubt that it will make things up or provide misinformation, should you ask an AI program for examples of misinformation from an AI program, it will provide them. Whichever way you look at that, it is proof.
The advent of physical self-publishing, too, has contributed to this, albeit less seriously. The vast majority of self-published books are fiction, but who is there to check the accuracy of the supposedly factual ones?
As difficult as it is to separate fact from fiction now, how will it be in five, ten, or twenty years down the line? Or a hundred? We already treat historical records with a certain amount of suspicion, aware that many of them will be biased or fabricated. I suspect that generations to come will decide it is impossible to be certain of anything that happened in these times.
In a way, they will be the new Dark Ages.
Mick Canning 
And even the BBC has been caught out… it is virtually impossible to tell what is real anymore…
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It seems you have to do a deep dive into pretty well anything to be certain, now.
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Sadly, yes 😔
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This is an interesting idea. Mick. The new Dark Ages. I certainly think society is starting to gradually go backwards as people change in this ‘lazy’ information environment. I have always found Wikipedia to be a very reliable information source although I too fact check. Information can vary even from reliable sources depending on the point of view presented. I noticed this when I researched the Anglo Boer Wars.
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Ah, there’s always point of view and always two sides to historical fact, but this has always been the case. As they say, history is written by the victors.
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Very true, As you know I’m an Indie publisher, and that gives me a certain freedom but, I try to be accurate. Mind, I see some traditional published books too that contain awful inaccuracies. But then the quality of publishing houses isn’t what it used to be.
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Books have always contained the odd error, of course, but as an indie publisher myself I’m very aware that I have freedom to publish pretty well anything I choose to publish. Obviously, there are lines I might cross which have consequences, but there’s nothing to stop me putting it out there in the first place.
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You have a good point here – a dark ages caused by too much information and the impossibility of untangling the facts from the spin and the laziness and the downright disinformation. Mind you, George Orwell reckoned history stopped in 1936 or thereabouts, for a similar reason. He was reading newspaper reports of the war he was fighting in and didn’t recognise it.
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I think it’s quite common for people to read or hear reports of something they’ve been caught up in and don’t recognise those versions. Plus ca change, I guess!
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Valid and important points here, Mick.
I worked for a local newspaper way back in the early 1970s as a photographer. I left when I noticed that many of the stories I’d attended with a reporter and taken photographs were presented in an exaggerated and sometimes an entirely fictional manner. This was a small local newspaper that most people bought for the weekly Births, Deaths, Marriages. So no such sensationalism was even necessary for sales.
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I would have thought that sensationalism still played its part, Stuart, even in a small provincial newspaper. They would want to do whatever they could to hang onto their readers, and if it worked for the big papers, well, why not?
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For me, Mick, it was about reporting the facts, so that people knew what was really going on, rather than being fed, for example, a story about school children apparently burning their school uniform items as a protest. In fact, that particular ‘story’ was fiction, entirely fabricated by a couple of reporters and a photographer who encouraged just a couple of wayward pupils to toss their school caps and ties in a wire mesh waste bin and set it on fire.
But there were many other stories where no sensationalism was necessary; the stories could have curried interest simply told truthfully.
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Where do you think they were coming from then, Stuart? Was it to please the editor / owner?
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A combination of reporter’s ambition to get on the staff of the nationals coupled with an owner who thought they would sell more papers, even thought the evidence, such as it was, never supported this hypothesis!
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I share the same fears, Mick! It’s getting harder and harder to tell what is real and what isn’t…..and that’s not good for any of us.
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It’s not, no.
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Very well put. Wikipedia is a very good example. I happen to speak a few languages, so when I check Wikipedia on a given topic, I can confirm that what is written in one language is often very different in another. French and English versions can be very different, not just in style but in context. Clearly there is no effort to merge the various versions.
So if you only speak Spanish you’ll be exposed to the bias of Spanish-speaking contributors (who are anonymous…) Or if you only speak English, you might not read other perspectives. (I’m sure English and Spanish versions of the Che Guevara article are very different.)
Thanks for the thought.
Brian
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Thanks, Brian. I wasn’t aware of that. That puts yet another slant upon it. It’s not just a translation issue, then?
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No, its’ not a translation issue. Sometimes there is a mention “This page has been translated from… whatever and needs improvement.” But most of the time, the sources are different. And the perspectives too…
Cheers Mick.
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When we consider history, a lot of what we learnt is either untrue or omits important facts; have we ever had a totally reliable source of information? Most of us, most of the time are not present at newsworthy events, but if you ever have read an account in the local newspaper about something you know ALL about, you will realise how facts are misinterpreted.
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Very true. I do often wonder how much we’ve been taught is wrong.
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