COVID Infodemic & the AI-Driven Hype Machine
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The document discusses the COVID-19 infodemic, identifying various forms of misinformation and the challenges posed by the AI-driven environment. It highlights the complexity of the modern information ecosystem and its impact on public health, advocating for greater literacy in infodemic management to improve information consumption. The talk outlines key factors that influence the spread of misinformation and suggests strategies to navigate the hype machine effectively.
COVID Infodemic & the AI-Driven Hype Machine
- 1. JUNAID QADIR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY (ITU), LAHORE, PAKISTAN
- 2. Rise of the infodemic
- 3. how can this infodemic be understood and managed?
- 4. Outline of the Talk 1. Understanding the problem (the COVID-19 infodemic) 2. The AI-Driven Hype Machine 3. Managing the Infodemic
- 5. Understanding the Problem COVID-19 infodemic 1
- 7. FALSE INTENT TO HARM Mis-information False Connection Misleading Content Dis- information False Context Imposter Content Manipulated Content Fabricated Content Information disorders visualized
- 11. “Every new technology will bite back. The more powerful its gifts, the more powerfully it can be abused.”Kevin Kelly Looking at technology critically Ledger of Harms
- 12. “The machine ingests what we post, how we read, who we follow, how we react to the content we see, and how we treat one another. It then reasons over this data to display new content, friend suggestions, and advertisements that maximize specific goals” Suppose we task an AI with curing cancer soonest possible. AI’s Value Alignment Problem King Midas Problem
- 13. Human psychology and Informatio
- 14. Managing the infodemic X X X X 3
- 15. 5 Global Misinformation Trends
- 16. How to Flatten the Infodemic
- 17. “Four factors—money, code, norms, and laws— guide how the Hype Machine affects us and how we, in turn, steer the Hype Machine. ” Controlling the hype machine
- 18. Further references https://covid.firstdraftnews.org https://www.who.int/teams/risk-communication/infodemic-management/ IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence (TAI), 2020 IEEE/ACM Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM), 2020
- 19. Conclusions 1. The modern information ecosystem has become very complex and prone to all kinds of disorder 2. Such information disorders can have a lot of negative consequences for human societies, particularly for public health. 3. We can become better consumers of information through infodemic management literacy. Questions/Comments? [email protected]
Editor's Notes
- #6: By definition, epidemiology is the study (scientific, systematic, and data-driven) of the distribution (frequency, pattern) and determinants (causes, risk factors) of health-related states and events (not just diseases) in specified populations (neighborhood, school, city, state, country, global).
- #7: Next, a conspiracy theory that has spanned the globe. It claims that the coronavirus pandemic is a cover for a plan to implant trackable microchips and that the Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is behind it. There is no vaccine "microchip" and there is no evidence to support claims that Bill Gates is planning for this in the future. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation told the BBC the claim was "false".
- #12: “People with more extreme political views tend to be more predictable in which items they will click on. […] Like any rational entity, the algorithm learns how to modify the state of its environment—in this case, the user’s mind—in order to maximize its own reward.” “Typically, […] algorithms are designed to maximize click-through, that is, the probability that the user clicks on presented items. The solution is simply to present items that the user likes to click on, right? Wrong. The solution is to change the user’s preferences so that they become more predictable. A more predictable user can be fed items that they are likely to click on, thereby generating more revenue.”
- #17: Here are seven steps you can take to navigate this wave of information and decide who and what to trust: 1. Assess the source Who shared the information with you and where did they get it from? Even if it is friends or family, you still need to vet their source. To check for fake social media accounts, look at how long profiles have been active, their number of followers and their most recent posts. For websites, check the “About Us” and “Contact Us” pages to look for background information and legitimate contact details. When it comes to images or videos, make it a habit to verify their authenticity. For images, you can use reverse image search tools provided by Google and TinEye. For videos, you can use Amnesty International's YouTube DatViewer, which extracts thumbnails that you can enter into reverse image search tools. Other clues that a source may be unreliable or inaccurate include unprofessional visual design, poor spelling and grammar, or excessive use of all caps or exclamation points. 2. Go beyond headlines Headlines may be intentionally sensational or provocative to get high numbers of clicks. Read more than just the headline of an article – go further and look at the entire story. Search more widely than social media for information – look at print sources such as newspapers and magazines, and digital sources such as podcasts and online news sites. Diversifying your sources allows you to get a better picture of what is or is not trustworthy. 3. Identify the author Search the author’s name online to see if they are real or credible. 4. Check the date When you come across information, ask yourself these questions: Is this a recent story? Is it up to date and relevant to current events? Has a headline, image or statistic been used out of context? 5. Examine the supporting evidence Credible stories back up their claims with facts – for example, quotes from experts or links to statistics or studies. Verify that experts are reliable and that links actually support the story 6. Check your biases We all have biases, and these factor into how we view what’s happening around us. Evaluate your own biases and why you may have been drawn to a particular headline or story. What is your interpretation of it? Why did you react to it that way? Does it challenge your assumptions or tell you what you want to hear? What did you learn about yourself from your interpretation or reaction? 7. Turn to fact-checkers When in doubt, consult trusted fact-checking organizations, such as the International Fact-Checking Networkand global news outlets focused on debunking misinformation, including the Associated Press and Reuters.