Disinformation
There's a sucker born every minute.
Chatbots have a new name - they are "generative AI's" and they are stirring up a storm among right wing people.
Seems they are biased. One would write a poem praising Biden but wouldn't write one praising Trump.
But think about it - is that really bias?
Could you find anything praiseworthy to even say about Trump, let alone say it as a poem? I couldn't.
The companies building chatbots actually do try to filter inflammatory material from it's output.
We already have experience from facebook and twitter with how inflammatory material can just mushroom into self-reinforcing silos of conspiracy theories.
It's dangerous.
But that danger really has been with us for a long long time; going back to when people first started talking. We've always needed to be good at evaluating the information that other people give us.
I think we're actually pretty good at evaluating information.
But that breaks down when you have silos of mutually reinforcing information.
We identify disinformation by checking out how it fits into what we already know.
If you are steeped in QAnon theories and everyone you talk to is too, then disinformation about pedophiles holding kids in the basement of a pizza shop would seem reasonable.
If everyone you know is a white christian nationalist then the great replacement seems reasonable.
The world is full of silos like that.
I'm in one.
Right wing people sneeringly call the silo I'm in 'woke'.
I accept the term and think it's about time that the right wing people woke up.
The woke silo includes science and all we've learned from that. QAnon ideas just cannot survive in that silo. It also looks at the social world using the same tools of rationally evaluating evidence that science applies to the physical world.
From my perspective the woke silo is expanding.
It's still a minority but the information I've seen is that about 25% of people globally are in the woke silo and going up.
So ironically, the great replacement idea fits the facts but it's just not a plot by some shadowy cabal - it's evolving demographics.
Rep George Santos of Long Island in the USA is a liar. Donald Trump is a liar.
Lies are a special sort of disinformation. A lie is a deliberate violation of trust. A lie is a tool used to manipulate people. And lies have the pernicious effect of corroding everyone's trust of information.
I'm aware that, especially in politics, everyone does their best to present themselves and their ideas in the best possible light and that can morph into saying things that are not really true.
Joe Biden was recently awarded 4 pinochios by the Washington Post after all. The difference is a matter of scale..
What do you think?