Dear Editor,
It’s apparent Artificial Intelligence (AI) is starting to impact all of us in some way and the public had better start talking about it in a real and relatable way. On the news, AI is almost always discussed in the context of how it will impact jobs and our labor market. It’s apparent the news media knows as little as I do because in one breath, they speak of “job losses because of AI” and in the next they speak of a whole new emerging technology that will “explode jobs”…..well, which is it?
Initiated in the 1950s, AI has evolved through machine learning, deep learning, and neural networks, all while in somewhat controlled environments. But now that the science has reached what is often referred to as the Generative AI stage the technology is available literally on the average home computer. Everyday users can now “generate” or manufacture their own image and audio files that contain apparent spoken words and actions that didn’t really happen. These “chatbots” or “deep fakes” can have legitimate purposes, but too often can be made for dark purposes, especially on virtually unregulated social media platforms. Case-in-point, all through Minneapolis’ anti-ICE demonstrations we all saw countless videos of horrible contacts between demonstrators and ICE officers. Many of those videos were legitimate, but there’s no question some of those videos were altered/edited/produced to promote certain points of view. Expressing one’s opinion is one thing; altering a video to convey a lie is wholly another. Social media debate over who was armed, who was not, what their intentions were, who was resisting and so on, while using a possibly doctored video as evidence just adds to the polarization and hysteria impacting us all. Additionally, within minutes you’d get several virtually identical videos and each poster reported seeing something entirely different on each video.
Roughly 55% of the American public get their news from social media platforms and 65-75% of those prefer watching news videos to reading text. The FCC isn’t chartered to regulate social media platforms; no one is. This news consumer shift suggests that accuracy on social media is probably more important than even on our radio/TV channels. It’s a slippery slope, but if Messrs Zuckerberg and Musk aren’t going to police their own platforms, who will? Maybe the FCC needs a new charter? If not, our social debate, possibly even the information that drives our very elections, will be driven by who lies the most; we don’t want to see that. “Russia, Russia, Russia” anyone?
Dan Schnieders
Jefferson City
