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How can we still trust the media in a time of unethical use of AI and social media propaganda? What is the best way to guard against disinformation? Why should you learn, now more than ever, to think clearly and communicate well?
In this podcast episode, Joe Sanok discusses the “Invisible Influence” and how AI, lies, and power shape what you believe with Professor Renée DiResta.
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Meet Professor Renée DiResta
Renée DiResta is an Associate Research Professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, specializing in the study of online disinformation, propaganda, and the manipulation of digital platforms. Previously, she served as the Technical Research Manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, where she led investigations into state-sponsored influence operations, including those by the Russian Internet Research Agency and the GRU during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Renée has advised U.S. Congress, the State Department, and various civil society organizations on issues related to online manipulation and policy.
She is the author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality and has contributed to publications such as The Atlantic, Wired, and Foreign Affairs. Renée is also a 2019 Truman National Security Fellow, a 2018 Mozilla Fellow, and a 2017 Presidential Leadership Scholar.
Visit Renée DiResta’s website and connect on LinkedIn.
In This Podcast
- Getting information online
- Unethical and ethical AI
- Mis-information
- Professor DiResta’s advice to private practitioners
Getting information online
The thing that’s interesting with learned language models is that they’re very confidently wrong … The person who asks the machine to do [something] is probably used to Googling and having Google return reliable results, because your expectation when you use Google is that it’s going to give you good information … When you move from search engines to answer engines … people who don’t recognize what it’s doing don’t realize that … the answer engine [is biased]. (Renée DiResta)
Regarding content that is related to hot topics, such as wars, genocides, and politics, people often forget that sometimes this content can be given the “wrong way”.
The content has the potential to be biased because it can be designed to be, especially when LLMs can often be confidently wrong, as Professor DiResta puts it. Sometimes, the information that LLMs draw on to formulate their answers is not entirely correct, but because they are correct most of the time, people tend to believe what they read.
[LLMs] are trained to [be flattering], and one of the things that is interesting about it is how people react to it and respond to that … The machine was validating literal delusions … This is not the sort of thing that you would want done. (Renée DiResta)
Unethical and ethical AI
How to decide when learning social skills is better versus getting attached to your chatbot, that’s way outside of where I feel like I have an understanding of human psychology – but what I do understand is how incentives shape systems. The incentives that shaped social media were pretty damn toxic at times, and we’re seeing that replicated again. (Renée DiResta)
There are now massive corporations that have clear financial gains for using AI and social media to bolster their incentives. What started as being purely focused on supporting human needs is now being marketed as such, but isn’t anymore.
Helping people understand with very clear eyes this time around, about what is happening and why, so that they can at least make an informed decision about what to engage with and when, is really important because we had rose-colored glasses on, I think, when we were all giving our data to Facebook, [for example]. (Renée DiResta)
Mis-information
The issue with misinformation is that it implies that when someone has the truth or better information, they will then change their minds. This is not the case.
Often, people still disagree with what’s objectively true when confronted with the real facts, even when they believed the facts that were under misinformation.
The issue that we have there is that it’s not a matter of having information; it’s that it’s become an identity marker in certain communities to not want to take a measles vaccine. It’s a crisis of trust; it’s a combination of identity and trust. (Renée DiResta)
The people who continue to push certain claims, either politically or economically, are doing so by basing them on identity, not on facts.
This is why Professor DiResta calls this propaganda and lies, because it is no longer an issue about having or not having all the information.
What’s happened is this big fracturing where people have moved into identity-based ways of thinking about the world, where we trust different sets of communicators, we believe very different things based on what those communicators tell us, and that’s where I think [saying] misinformation is inadequate, because it’s just not a problem of facts. (Renée DiResta)
Professor DiResta’s advice to private practitioners
Speak up on these things. If you have engaged with chat apps, social media, and AI, and you have strong opinions about the ethics and how to use these tools effectively and safely, do speak up on them with your clients if they are open to it.
Books mentioned in this episode:
Renée DiResta – Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality
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Meet Joe Sanok
Joe Sanok helps counselors to create thriving practices that are the envy of other counselors. He has helped counselors to grow their businesses by 50-500% and is proud of all the private practice owners who are growing their income, influence, and impact on the world. Click here to explore consulting with Joe.
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