Meghan McCarty Carino

Deception online is certainly nothing new, but what struck you about this experience?

Part of what stands out about this scenario is just kind of how low stakes it is.

Like, the idea that someone would go to the effort to... I mean, at least, you know, in kind of the pre-AI era to fake something for...

motivation that seems very unclear like you're getting up votes on reddit or something like it's just very in the before ai times it was just very that would seem like a very odd scenario that would not necessarily inspire a lot of skepticism like why would someone do that

But you do write that this, you know, this is a way that AI tools are making your job as a journalist harder.

I mean, we often talk about AI increasing productivity, but there are many instances like this where AI is just kind of creating this pointless busy work for people.

Yeah, you are trained to do that as a journalist.

What does it sort of say about what this new reality in our information ecosystem kind of requires of everyone or at least, you know, institutions of journalism of, you know, kind of informational verification?

That was Casey Newton at Platformer.

Nicholas Guillaume produced this episode.

I'm Megan McCarty Carino, and that's Marketplace Tech.

This is APM.

Information apocalypse now.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Megan McCarty Carino.

Our information ecosystem has not been great for a while, but generative AI has definitely kicked things up a notch.

Whether it's fake images of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, AI-generated videos of ICE interactions, or a viral hoax posted on Reddit alleging exploitation at a food delivery app, it's getting harder to verify what is real on the internet.

The idea of an information apocalypse, or infocalypse, is something Aviv Ovadia has been warning about for a decade now, well before AI came on the scene.

He's the CEO and founder of the AI and Democracy Foundation.

Right now, where do you see AI causing the biggest problems in our information ecosystem?