“Doubt grows with knowledge.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

AI has the ability to mimic my voice, or any voice.  AI can also spread misinformation and disinformation. 

Misinformation meaning the collected information is inaccurate and has no redeeming qualities contributing to new knowledge. This is because the information lacks an accurate context and therefore knowledge is absent.

AI can also spread disinformation, which means information that is false and deliberately intended to mislead.  Disinformation may look real but the facts have been altered to suit the purpose of deception, and the avoidance of fact.

Knowing all this about the future of AI makes one wonder.  How long will the internet be a viable representation of fact?  How long will it take before the fake information supersedes the factual information?    

Neil deGrasse Tyson, a respected astrophysicist and philosopher, has said that AI will destroy the credibility of information on the internet within a few years.  He is talking about a time when we will not be able to depend on the internet for factual information anymore. 

He believes we will then return to a dependency on experts in the field for factual information.  He states: “Just like when we turn to a plumber when we need to fix our plumbing”.

What Happens Next?

How would losing our dependency on the internet affect society?  What would replace the internet?  The world has been dependent on the internet since 1992. 

Every living being under the age of 30 has never been without the internet.  How would the loss of credibility in the internet affect the rest of the technological world?  What would replace the internet?

“It is only when they go wrong that machines remind you how powerful they are.” – Clive James

Trust In Technology

The boom in technology at the personal level started with the PC.  We have always had a ubiquitous trust in the continuous progress of technology.  AI may be sending humans a message that unlimited trust in technological growth and expansion does have the potential for deleterious ramifications.

When we lose trust, we usually abandon.  How many false positives on the internet will it take for people to start to abandon the internet?  Can we operate a business or even our personal lives with the continued proliferation of misinformation and disinformation in our daily lives. 

“It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” – William James

Beyond AI

Could Neil deGrasse Tyson be right?  Will the end of confidence in the internet inspire a return to human expertise?  How ironic this turn of events would be.  To think that our best attempt to provide information on everything would backfire into a return to more reliance on human knowledge and expertise. 

Maybe this is not really ironic at all.   Before the explosion of the information age, we used to equate information with knowledge.  These days that idea may be history.  Information may even be contraindicated for the advancement of knowledge.  Due to the fact that we are now overwhelmed with information, crowded with quantity, much of it false or misleading, knowledge may be much harder to delineate. 

The ability to delineate knowledge has always depended on human beings.  Only in recent history have we believed that machines could be superior at the determination of what information equates to actual knowledge.  Maybe we were wrong!

Maybe information needs to be filtered into knowledge.  A peer reviewed journal takes information and then proceeds to filter that information into knowledge with evidence.  Could it be that beyond AI we will discover ways to filter the misinformation and disinformation permeating our world today into reliable and usable knowledge?

“Growth demands a temporary surrender of security.” – Gail Sheehy

Growth

How might humanity grow through replacing technology that is beyond its used by date?  When technology fails innovation begins. 

Our growth takes place when we risk and dare to become involved in finding something better. We know that we never arrive at perfection and we also know that we are definitely not there now.  Humans expand their world by diving into the unknown. The known will not help us grow, only the unknown has that possibility.

To seek the unknown will take courage, effort, maybe some pain, and fortitude. But what is to be gained in the status quo of our existence?  Humanity has always grown through taking risks and not avoiding the uncertainty of change. Being stuck in complacency is our biggest risk.