[noduerme]

Quantity and velocity of misinformation are both critical variables here.

Any one person's writing was always untrustworthy, but the majority of that bad writing didn't make it to a printing press, nor was it mass-distributed.

Let's accept the proposition that all forms of media have always been full of lies. We can say that debunking always follows lies, truth spreads more slowly than fiction. The quantity and velocity of additional misinformation - especially when machines are involved in writing infinite amounts of it in the blink of an eye - lays waste to the normal series of events where a lie can be followed by a debunking with linear speed and velocity. With LLMs and social media manipulation, falsehoods gain traction exponentially while truths remain linear.

There is likely not a "transition period" where people will adjust to this, precisely because there is no mechanism to inform them they're being swindled and screwed faster than the takeoff of the algorithms that are now screwing them.

[tsimionescu]

The total amount of generated untrustworthy content is irrelevant. People must learn to only read content from trusted sources, and then it won't matter how much misinformation is being published in other places.

It was never difficult to publish large amounts of misinformation, AI is only making it cheaper.

[SAI_Peregrinus]

If the signal/noise ratio dramatically decreases then finding trustworthy sources in the first place becomes more difficult.

[noduerme]

>>The total amount of generated untrustworthy content is irrelevant

Of course it is relevant. Discerning which sources to trust takes valuable time. Sources which were once trusted may need to be reevaluated.

>>It was never difficult to publish large amounts of misinformation, AI is only making it cheaper.

What is the difference between difficulty and expense?