The Key to Regaining Trust in the Era of AI
Who and what can you really trust anymore?
Photographer: Olivier Morin/AFP via Getty Images
Your grandmother trusted her doctor. Your mother trusted Consumer Reports. You trust the 4.7-star rating from 2,300 strangers. But if you’ve recently used the internet to look at reviews for a stroller, or even for help selecting a health insurance plan, you likely noticed that it’s not very helpful anymore. Real information has become buried by an avalanche of artificial intelligence-produced fakery.
Today’s internet is less authentic. And less human. If you rely on it for information about anything from polo shirts to politics, that’s a big problem. The good news might just be that in an age when AI can manufacture those strangers — and their enthusiasm — overnight, people may start trusting institutions and experts again.