Dr M.R. (Mark) Leiser’s Post

I welcome the UK House of Lords' clear warning that current market failures in the #news industry, caused by #BigTech firms, may quickly lead to “irreversible” harm for our society and #democracy: “There is a realistic possibility of the UK's news environment fracturing irreparably along social, regional and economic lines within the next 5–10 years. The implications for our society and democracy would be grim.” “The consolidation of power among the world’s pre-eminent tech firms is leading to unprecedented influence over the information we see. AI models can already produce passable news summaries and answer politically sensitive questions. These advances are starting to upend news media business models and change the way people find information.” “We have deepening concerns about the implications for media plurality, and the way these developments will compound the shift towards a two tier media environment [where] a growing proportion of society will have limited engagement with professionally produced news, and the gap is widening.” The report’s proposals include: ▶️ 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐀𝐈 – “The Government must update legislation to align incentives between news providers and AI firms and help them strike mutually beneficial deals.” ▶️ 𝐓𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐁𝐢𝐠 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐬 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐥𝐲 – The competition authority “should investigate allegations of anti-competitive practice by Big Tech firms acquiring AI training data”. The media regulator's (Ofcom’s) rules on media plurality “should account for tech firms’ growing influence in their ability to produce news content through generative AI summaries”. ▶️ 𝐁𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐬/𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 – Measures to tackle disinformation should not undermine confidence in free speech or fuel public distrust. “We caution against overreliance on technical fixes (such as labelling and watermarks).” These findings and recommendations matter not just in the UK. #CompetitionMatters #onlineadvertising #mediaplurality

It's a great report 👍 👌 The UK has some real crown jewel news companies and institutions that have navigated technological evolution to use open web technologies to become globally renown and which add huge public value to the economies and communities around the world., including the UK. We also has some really interesting news start-ups at a local level who are finding new audiences for watchdog journalism, and ways of making that pay. But as the open internet begins to close, the big question is how that ecosystem succeeds and grows when at least a proportion of that readers will move from seeking news to that journalism being fetched by an agent. That journalism is of no less value to the reader, or the model that does the fetching, but the terms of that value exchange are the key point of debate.

Is it time to redefine information? Growing up, we thought of both "knowledge" and "information" as things that were inherently "true". Now that #information is effectively infinite, it is also intuitively obvious that much of it is inaccurate. Worse yet, it is influenced by the fluid context in which we build the stories to which we anchor our impactful decisions and consequential actions. The idea of information #determinism is not new, but with the #AI-powered creation of #misinformation and instantaneous dissemination of #disinformation we are looking at a very real shift in the very nature of what information is and what it can do. For instance, imagine that history, along with culture, was dead and replaced with new narratives. It's easy to imagine, since it has been happening since the beginning of time. Even today, we know that perception of reality is driven by various narratives pushed by those with the biggest megaphone, but imagine that such stories can, on a very frequent, or even continuous basis, rewrite our cultural identity, our personal preferences and even restructure our social networks. Is the fluidity of information and plasticity of our own identities likely to be weaponized using high-frequency algorithms that will cause the bottom to fall out of society as we know it? If there's even a small chance of this occurring, I suggest it's time to think about three things: 1. create immutable protective safeguards around #data, well before it turns into information (and support current efforts to do so) 2. build layered controls into #artificialintelligence to prevent, detect and correct #risk (and connect existing efforts towards such standardization) 3. ensure that AI control frameworks are not the sole domain of the tech community, but also includes deep involvement (and accountability) from entire adjoining sectors such as #education, #government, #media and communications and so on.

2024: the year the world is going to the polls. 🗳 In the UK, research prior to the General Election from Thinks Insight & Strategy showed the public could be pushed into boosting misleading online posts related to asylum seekers, fake voters and what to bring to the polling station. 🇬🇧 4 in 10 reacted to an audio deepfake of Keir Starmer. 👤 The number of international fact checking organisations has dropped from its 2022 height, according to The New York Times. 📉 A future threat for governments, companies and people. ⚠ Online misinformation and disinformation is on the rise, fuelled by generative AI and increased geopolitical tension. ⚔ But there is room to be optimistic as people wise up to AI and challenge their own beliefs about what they see online. 🤔 Across the Pond, Sheera Frenkel is looking at disinformation campaigns during this Presidential campaign. The public is sceptical of misleading posts. 🇺🇸 Will increased public understanding negate the need for policy and legislative intervention? 📋

This is an open letter calling for the creation of an official, open-source #EU hashtag: #AIBenchmarks. This initiative should be supported by a foundation made up of both individuals and companies. While the European Commission has introduced #AIACT, there is currently no robust system to test, enforce, or apply these rules effectively. At control-f, as we develop benchmarks for our models, we ponder the implications of benchmarking foundation models against political tools like Germany’s #wahlomat. Our findings indicate that many recent models may show a political bias, swinging either left or right depending on the inputs. This poses a significant risk: How do we ensure these models do not manipulate our democratic processes? This concern is directly addressed in the AI Act (Article 61), which states that AI systems designed to influence election outcomes or voting behavior must be classified as high-risk. As the EU Parliament prepares for upcoming votes, addressing these issues is not just necessary, it's urgent. The integrity of our democratic processes hangs in the balance. Follow us on: www.contolf.io Or: https://lnkd.in/eWVCCcUR View the full Article: https://lnkd.in/ewBF7FiS

Traditional polling data isn’t enough to accurately read UK voter sentiment. 🇬🇧 Our whitepaper reveals the real human emotions behind the numbers. 🔍💗 Discover how Prolific’s pool of 200k+ participants and Voiceform’s #AI technology captured authentic political perceptions from a representative sample of 500 UK respondents. You’ll learn how the UK truly feels about: - The current The Conservative Party leadership under Rishi Sunak. - Keir Starmer’s opposition The Labour Party and its changing direction. - Which policies and themes register as most critical for voters. - What it could take to sway voting intentions at this stage. Get a deeper glimpse into the UK’s political pulse. Download the whitepaper today: https://lnkd.in/eQHNZSy2 #UKGeneralElection #PoliticalInsights #UKPolitics

Can big tech be trusted to burst the misinformation/disinformation bubbles that pose a continual threat to democratic institutions? Is #regulation a necessity or a threat to #commerce & #freespeech? Will generative AI make the battle against harmful content and bad actors an increasingly futile one, or will #AI save citizens from the algorithms? Looking forward to a lively conversation with Cyril Malargé at Le Cercle des économistes #REAix We'll be battling ideas and solutions at France's #Davos a mere two days before the snap French elections are set to conclude. It's a timely debate, feel free to chime in... #AixEnProvence #Misinformation #Disinformation #Democracy Embassy of Ireland France - Ambassade d'Irlande en France Centre Culturel Irlandais https://lnkd.in/egd9nvS5

Credit to The Economist MAY 2ND 2024 How disinformation works—and how to counter it More co-ordination is needed, and better access to data https://lnkd.in/g6HxX7er Disinformation has existed for as long as there have been two sides to an argument. 1). Rameses II did not win the battle of Kadesh in 1274bc. It was, at best, a draw; but you would never guess that from the monuments the pharaoh built in honour of his triumph. 2). Julius Caesar’s account of the Gallic wars is as much political propaganda as historical narrative. 3). The age of print was no better. During the English civil war of the 1640s, press controls collapsed, prompting much concern about “scurrilous and fictitious pamphlets”. The internet has made the problem much worse. False information can be distributed at low cost on social media; ai also makes it cheap to produce. Much of the research on disinformation tends to focus on a specific topic on a particular platform in a single language. But it turns out that most campaigns work in similar ways. The techniques used by Chinese disinformation operations to bad-mouth South Korean firms in the Middle East, for instance, look remarkably like those used in Russian-led efforts to spread untruths around Europe. The goal of many operations is not necessarily to make you support one political party over another. Sometimes the aim is simply to pollute the public sphere, or sow distrust in media, governments, and the very idea that truth is knowable. Encouragingly, technology is as much a force for good as it is for evil. Although ai makes the production of disinformation much cheaper, it can also help with tracking and detection. Other tools can spot dodgy videos by identifying faked audio, or by looking for signs of real heartbeats, as revealed by subtle variations in the skin colour of people’s foreheads. Better co-ordination can help, too. Academic researchers, ngos, tech firms, media outlets and government agencies cannot tackle the problem of disinformation on their own. With co-ordination, they can share information and spot patterns, enabling tech firms to label, muzzle or remove deceptive content. But deeper understanding also requires better access to data. In today’s world of algorithmic feeds, only tech companies can tell who is reading what.  Europe’s new Digital Services Act mandates data-sharing, and could be a template for other countries.  Co-ordination will be easier to pull off in some places than others. Taiwan, for instance, is considered the gold standard for dealing with disinformation campaigns. It helps that the country is small, trust in the government is high and the threat from a hostile foreign power is clear.

From watching the football results through a shop window, to crowding around a newstand to grab sight of the daily headlines (or tuning in to those "extra extra read all about it" cries that presaged clickbait), news consumption has arguably always been bifurcated to an extent... You probably either got the gist (at best), or you paid and got the whole story (and, hopefully, the facts). But this report from The House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee paints a picture of how the news ecosystem's polarisation is becoming not just more pronounced, but more dangerous. It's not all doom and gloom of course. There will be winners as well as losers as the media ecosystem evolves. But, rest assured, news consumers, and journalists. are feeling the effects of the ongoing 'information war' - where publishers, platforms and politics are on the front line, as advertisers, AI and algorithms fly over head... https://lnkd.in/eKyvynXk

Fascinating insights 🔍 from the 24th Edelman Trust Barometer, illuminating Australia's evolving trust dynamics in the digital era from Nadia Cameron and Edleman CEO Tom Robinson 🤝 Amidst a 4% increase in overall trust sentiment YOY, Australians exhibit nuanced attitudes towards innovation, AI, and trusted sources. 📈💡 🌏 Essential findings: 🕵♀️ 🔍 Australia's trust index rose by 4% to 52, although distrust in government and media persists. 📈🇦🇺 💡Aussies rank second after the US in perceiving inadequate management of innovation and AI, showcasing skepticism. 🤔 👥🔬📱We prioritise trust in "people like me," (75%), scientists, and social media over CEOs and government leaders, signalling shifting trust paradigms. The longer narrative points to is Australian consumers not placing as much trust in traditional leaders as we once did and favouring community instead 👨👩👧👦 📰 Notably, the report found trust in national media remains low, despite its prevalence as a key information source. In terms of the most used sources of information for new technologies and innovations, national media leads in Australia (51), followed by online searches (43), friends and family (40), local media (37) and social media (35). This was different to APAC results, where social media topped the list. Echoing sentiments from Edelman CEO Tom Robinson, marketers are urged to recalibrate strategies, emphasising collaboration, nuanced messaging, and active listening to diverse voices across traditional media and modern social platforms. 🤝💬 "Innovation and the role of AI are supposed to usher in a new era of economic prosperity. Yet, there's a real fear, both personal and existential, around the potential risks. Marketers must listen and communicate the tangible benefits clearly, ensuring transparency and addressing concerns head-on." shared Robinson 🗣 Its clear that the complexities of trust and attitudes to innovation and AI will need to be navigated by local communities, businesses, buyers and consumers to foster increasingly open dialogue, transparency and understanding in the digital era. 🤖 Full article below 👇 #DigitalTrust #InnovationDialogue #TrustInTech #DigitalTransformation #TrustBarometer #Innovation #AI #TrustedSources #PeersVsCEOs #AIEthics #australiantech #australianinnovation #TCA Tech Council of Australia