Back in 1993, my father Robert Cumming wrote a column titled “Who can you believe?” In the column he discussed the value of oral history in many indigenous cultures around the world and the value of those histories in understanding indigenous cultures and the impact that European settlers had on the country and those cultures.
As I read the column, I began to think about the world today and again asked the question “Who can you believe? NewsGuard’s team of researchers have tracked 1090 Artificial Intelligence (A-I) generated news and information sites around the world in sixteen different languages and operating in over 18 different countries. Many of these sites operate without any human oversite. Many of these sites operate from China and Russia disseminating false information to impact elections in the United States.
Over two billion people will cast votes this year in elections around the world and many social media sites will be using Artificial Intelligence to create false stories and distort the truth. Photographs will be doctored. Fictitious stories will be written. Lives will be hurt.
Supposing in the final days of an election, a damming story is written that hurts a candidate. It may be fully accurate but can now be dismissed as A-I generated false story. It is already occurring in the US election. It may be why in the US journalists are now being attacked by one of the candidates and are being warned that they are in jeopardy should the candidate be successful.
We have already seen A-I created photos of candidates that are not accurate. We have already seen networks and social media sites broadcast and rebroadcast false statements by the candidates. In Canada, sixty percent of Canadians are worried about the impact of A-I stories impacting our next election. We already understand that China tried to play a role in the last federal election.
The question rises again. “Who can you believe? One of the worrying aspects in Canada is where a great many Canadians get their news. An Abacus Data Poll conducted by CPAC found that 62% of those surveyed not confident they could identify AI use for false information in an election.
Unfortunately, many rely on social networks and AI generated sites. A good starting point is to look to your local news organizations who will have reporters and photographers recording and documenting what local candidates are saying and doing. You can look to national papers such as the Globe and Mail, National Post and Toronto Star who have editors to oversee the accuracy of stories being written. Forty percent of Canadians receive their main news from television, and they can depend on the three main networks in Canada to provide accurate news.
