Fake news hell just a click away
Endeavour, £16.99
IN this alarming wake-up call, SamuelWoolley outlines how technology is on the brink of radical change that will take fake news to terrifying new levels, with consequences more socially divisive than Brexit.
The threats range from “deep-fake” videos that are indistinguishable from genuine footage, to the alarming potential of “extended” and “virtual” realities.
And as artificial intelligence becomes cheaper and more sophisticated, it will become ever harder to distinguish between real people’s social media accounts and “bots” with fake accounts spreading political lies.
Woolley, who has worked for Oxford University’s Internet Institute, and “Google’s human rights-orientated technology incubator” Jigsaw, now leads the Digital Intelligence Lab. So he makes an erudite and convincing guide to the risks that lie ahead.
He explains how society has given rise to these alarming trends. In online spaces originally designed to bring people together, hostile governments or malicious trolls are sowing mistrust among communities and subverting democracy to suit their own political agendas.
But he argues persuasively that “the more people who understand the problem, the better” and suggests ways in which society can try to “fix the ecosystem” of the internet in the coming decade.
He believes that the most powerful long-term solutions will develop offline: “policymakers, tech companies, and society itself all have their share of responsibility in rebuilding democracy for the digital age”.
The problem with his diagnosis is that he is calling for change from powerful governments and internet mega-companies such as Google, Facebook, or Twitter, without identifying any incentive for them to change.
Woolley is clear that internet giants have two key motives: profit and growth (he compares their desire for world market domination with a major tobacco company which spread smoking to emerging markets even after the carcinogenic properties of tobacco became clear).
And yet he proposes that powerful corporate interests should change their behaviour – for example, providing greater clarity about their algorithms which determine the news stories we see online, to avoid an unspecified “failure” at an unspecified point in the future.
In effect, he is asking them to play nicely for the sake of society.This is perhaps overly optimistic.The corporate behaviour of social media companies since Trump’s election has been far from ethical and there is little reason to hope they might change soon.
But above all, he counsels, it is our responsibility to ensure we’re informed about the people and companies who determine what we see and read online.AndThe Reality Game is an excellent place to start.