Fake News Is Real

Article from Volume 10, Issue Number 2, 2023

By Alan Forbes | Other articles by Alan Forbes | Feature

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been repeatedly in the news lately. Speaking of which, what did you think of the prior article, The Advantages of Condominium Living? The article was written by Copymatic’s AI text generator https://copymatic.ai/article-generator/ and the image of the ‘beautiful and desirable condominium property’ was created by OpenAI’s DALL-E https://openai.com/dall-e-2/.

While we did the prior article as an experiment to better understand the capability of AI and to introduce you to the world of AI, be assured that we have no plans to use AI to create content for CCI Manitoba.

Lots of businesses are jumping on the AI bandwagon and so too are nefarious organizations. As well, there are implications for misinformation, disinformation, fake news, cheating on tests and exams, and many other issues. Some recent examples of AI in the news include:

Disruptions in the labor force as businesses start to deploy AI - ChatGPT may reset the world of work as businesses rush to own artificial intelligence, CBC News, https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/chatgpt-intelligence-ownership-column-don-pittis-1.6739025
Concerns about transparency, inaccuracies, job security and data privacy because of the ‘training data’ used - Why regulators in Canada and Italy are digging into ChatGPT's use of personal information, CBC News, https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/openai-chatgpt-data-privacy-investigations-1.6804205 (be sure to watch the embedded CBC News video with Ian HanomanSing)
Similar to the concerns about who is at fault if an autonomous vehicle is involved in an accident, who can be sued for libel if AI generated text is to blame? - Australian mayor prepares world’s first defamation lawsuit over ChatGPT content, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/apr/06/australian-mayor-prepares-worlds-first-defamation-lawsuit-over-chatgpt-content
Concerns about plagiarism and cheating are discussed in this podcast from the BBC - Chatbot Plagiarism, https://pca.st/7be6jjsz
The comic strip Zits by Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman has some AI content Apr 17, 18 & 19 https://www.arcamax.com/thefunnies/zits/s-2810392
CTV News reports Impersonation of big name performers on TikTok - AI-generated Drake and The Weeknd song racks up millions of plays https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ai-generated-drake-and-the-weeknd-song-racks-up-millions-of-plays-1.6358993

For a good overview of AI, The Economist magazine has run a number of articles and podcasts. Here is an excellent example: Babbage: Is GPT-4 the dawn of true artificial intelligence? https://pca.st/buqrl69v.

Alan Forbes (human and not an A.I.)
Chair, Communications Committee
CCI Manitoba