When algorithms compete for truth, they are also in competition to propagate fake news.
Who is assigned the write-privileges to your software
Each group in momentary power or privilege will get the typewriter to write a new history and the eraser to obliterate what was before.
This is not to say that societies cannot function if they rely on a shared history consisting of fake news. Indeed, they may even flourish if fake news is a tether, nation-founding myths designed to promote social cohesion.
- How can we solve the problem of information-stream fragmentation along ideological lines?
- How can we disrupt hermetically sealed misinformation environments.
Perhaps we are on a collision course with the human problem. People do not want ‘the truth’.
Can technology puncture a self sealing environment?
- Speed. You have to be right there in real-time correcting falsehoods, before they get loose into the information ecosystem
- Selective Exposure. Only AI can find ways to break into the networks when intrusions are resisted
Is Blockchain a solution?
Blockchain is a distributed history. Whether it’s a solution or tech cultism will take generations to know.
Utimately, the fundamental problem with fake news is not that we don’t have the technology to prevent it. The problem seems more deeply rooted in the human trait of preferring truthiness over truth, especially if truthiness salves where the truth might hurt.
The end?
With many H/tips to John Robb whose Patreon I have no doubt plagiarized in words and/or ideas