A lot of people are in a bit of phase of blaming AI for all the misinformation swirling around out there, and certainly it deserves to be raked across the coals for the problem, too. But the problem of liars lying is hardly a new one.
Have you ever stopped to wonder why lies work so well?
I think it is really quite simple, actually, tho I doubt many of us stop to think of the root reason buried under the surface: lies work because they can be shaped to the audience.
The truth? That rigid.
Facts are facts.
Reality, abstract philosophy about objective perspective aside, is something that we can measure, track, evaluate and document.
Science is founded on the principles of seeking evidence, accumulating data and supporting or adjusting our knowledge based on and honest evaluation of truth, facts, and reality.
But misinformation doesn’t follow any of those rules. It can be bent, shaped, reformed, crammed, and inflated to fill gaps. It can be made to order to fit the shape of the mind for which it has been intended. It is formless and baseless until it is ingested in exactly the right fit. The only work it needs to do is one of imagination and enjoining to its audience.
The truth takes work, and it is often hidden or fuzzy or obscured.
Misinformation by comparison is trivial and easy. It is the work of the lazy and easily amused, to fit a narrative into themselves rather than change themselves against the facts presented by reality.
This all comes to my mind because I’ve been reading a lot of misinformation on social media related to the Alberta Separatist movement, posting unsubstantiated notions about taxes and transfer payments and the cost of a national divorce, all of it invented and fabricated and made up to fit the narrative that separation would be harmless, painless and some kind of windfall for Alberta.
The truth is far tricker, required digging into the law and math and the intricacies of social structures and business confidence. Reality is not so simple as a fanciful story invented for a political purpose. The truth would take work to understand… so, sadly, the easy (and wrong) story presented within the misinformation is what people share.