[frostix]

The issue with generative AI techniques in general is how low the barrier to entry is. Various forms of information that used to be difficult or resource intensive to create have suddenly become approachable and even trivial in terms of resource investment to create.

Overall, in any sort of cost/benefit analysis, the cost is just so low now the benefits don’t have to be much of anything, if anything at all. Entertainment factor alone, boredom, or perhaps a passing curiosity to try something are enough to create and present false or misleading information and push it out to the public, creating noise needed to filter through. There are plenty of other far stronger motives that make the problem even worse.

Misinformation and disinformation were already becoming an increasingly large societal issue IMHO. That is only going to get worse with wide access to generative AI. We already have a high degree of erosion in social trust where we pretty much have to consider motives and driving forces behind every transactional relationship we have these days and we could at least use costs to help sort that mess out: why would someone bother investing the resources to do this? Does it cost a lot to present me with false information and if so, is there enough potential motive behind that to make this information more likely to be false or misleading?

The answer to this is increasingly yes. It’s now far more difficult to start from a position of distrust and move to a point of trust or likelihood of trust and I think we’re going to see that even more in all sorts of aspects of daily life. I now have to assume most pieces of information out there are targeting me and attempting to manipulate me in some way (more than before). I fear we’re moving to a model of free speech that will put more weight on “authoritative” sources more so than in recent past in many cases considering liabilities authorities have when presenting false, misleading, or inaccurate information. Liabilities that in many cases aren’t real liabilities just perceived liabilities, granting authoritative information sources far more credit than is due.