How Generative AI is Affecting Scientific Information
Until recently, people seeking information on scientific topics would rely on Google searches and choose which sites or authorities to trust. Today, generative artificial intelligence (AI) platforms like ChatGPT provide quick and succinct responses to queries by predicting likely word combinations from a massive amalgam of available online information. However, generative AI has shown some major faults, including the potential for misinformation, creating “hallucinations,” and inaccurately solving reasoning problems. These faults can blur the boundaries between truth and fiction for those seeking authoritative scientific information.
How Generative AI Could Promote Science Denial
Generative AI has the potential to promote science denial in several ways:
- Erosion of epistemic trust: With the increased use of generative AI and the potential for manipulation, trust in scientific and medical experts may erode further than it already has.
- Misleading or just plain wrong: AI can produce conflicting answers or incorrect information due to errors or biases in the data on which it is trained.
- Disinformation spread intentionally: AI can be used to generate compelling disinformation as text, images, and videos, making it dangerously easy to create and spread deliberately incorrect information about science.
- Fabricated sources: Generative AI can provide responses with no sources or present ones that it made up, which can convey authority to readers who don’t take time to verify them.
- Dated knowledge: AI systems may not know what happened in the world after their training concluded, which could mean readers get erroneous outdated information.
- Rapid advancement and poor transparency: Insufficient guardrails are in place to assure that generative AI will become a more accurate purveyor of scientific information over time.
What Can You Do?
To navigate the new AI information landscape, there are several steps you can take:
- Recognize that AI might not be completely accurate: The burden falls on the user to discern accuracy.
- Increase your vigilance: Be vigilant about the information you consume and share on social media and take time to vet the sources.
- Improve your fact-checking: Use lateral reading to evaluate sources and search for information about the sources provided.
- Evaluate the evidence: Take a look at the evidence and its connection to the claim and consider the scientific consensus.
- Assess plausibility: Judge whether the claim is plausible and open to revising your thinking once you have checked the evidence.
- Promote digital literacy: Improve your own digital literacy and promote it in others, especially teens, to minimize risks to health and well-being.
Arm yourself with the skills you need to navigate the new AI information landscape. It can take time and effort to find and evaluate reliable information about science online, but it is worth it.
- Artificial Intelligence Misinformation
- Combatting Science Denial in the Age of AI
- Safeguarding Against Chatbots and Other AI-Powered Misinformation
- Strategies for Identifying and Countering AI-Powered Misinformation
- The Importance of Critical Thinking in the Face of AI-Driven Deception
News Source : Gale Sinatra,Barbara K. Hofer
Source Link :How to protect yourself from ChatGPT and other AI that fosters science denial/