, Forbes; How To Avoid AI Misinformation: 2 Essential Steps For Smarter Research
"AI can be a powerful ally or a risky gamble, depending on how you use it. If you’re relying on AI for research, taking shortcuts can backfire—and cost you your credibility. To avoid AI misinformation, follow these two essential steps:
Here’s why these steps are critical."
Gina Kolata , The New York Times; A.I. Chatbots Defeated Doctors at Diagnosing Illness
"Instead, in a study Dr. Rodman helped design, doctors who were given ChatGPT-4 along with conventional resources did only slightly better than doctors who did not have access to the bot. And, to the researchers’ surprise, ChatGPT alone outperformed the doctors.
“I was shocked,” Dr. Rodman said.
The chatbot, from the company OpenAI, scored an average of 90 percent when diagnosing a medical condition from a case report and explaining its reasoning. Doctors randomly assigned to use the chatbot got an average score of 76 percent. Those randomly assigned not to use it had an average score of 74 percent.
The study showed more than just the chatbot’s superior performance.
It unveiled doctors’ sometimes unwavering belief in a diagnosis they made, even when a chatbot potentially suggests a better one."
, Forbes; How ABC News Could Fix CNN’s Mockery Of The First Presidential Debate
"If we are bringing prolific liars live on an election debate, our responsibility to truth-telling and truth-determination requires that we make a sincere attempt to vet their claims within a few minutes of them being aired. This is when the audience of millions is in the frame of comparing candidates. And when those claims are dubious, it is an act of ethical journalism to intervene to ask its promoters to defend with actual evidence, or call them out."
"Working with the AI bot Claude is, in no particular order, amazing, frustrating, and hilarious...
I have asked Claude detailed Hebrew grammatical questions or asked him to translate difficult rabbinic Hebrew passages, and time and time again, Claude has nailed it.
But just as frequently, he creates texts out of thin air, side by side with accurate citations, which then have to be vetted one by one.
When I asked Claude why he manufactured citations, he explained that he aims to please and can sometimes go a little too far. In other words, Claude tells me what he thinks I want to hear...
"I’m sure that AI bots are already providing “companionship” for an increasingly isolated generation, not to mention proving falsehoods side by side with truths for unsuspecting readers.
And so, the promise and the threat of AI continue to grow by the day, with a little entertainment and humor added in."
Thomson Reuters ; Navigate ethical and regulatory issues of using AI
"However, the need for regulation to ensure clarity, trust, and mitigate risk has not gone unnoticed. According to the report, the vast majority (93%) of professionals surveyed said they recognize the need for regulation. Among the top concerns: a lack of trust and unease about the accuracy of AI. This is especially true in the context of using the AI output as advice without a human checking for its accuracy."
Erik Ortiz, NBC News; Alex Jones lashes out after agreeing to sell assets to pay legal debt to Sandy Hook families
"Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families, said their fight is far from over.
“Alex Jones has hurt so many people,” Mattei said in a statement. “The Connecticut families have fought for years to hold him responsible no matter the cost and at great personal peril. Their steadfast focus on meaningful accountability, and not just money, is what has now brought him to the brink of justice in the way that matters most.”
Jones had previously sought a bankruptcy settlement with the families, but that was rejected.
In the wake of the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in which a gunman killed 20 children and six adults, Jones repeatedly suggested the massacre was a hoax. At his trial in Texas in 2022, he generally blamed “corporate media” for twisting his words and misportraying him, but did not specify how."
ALI SWENSON , AP; Tests find AI tools readily create election lies from the voices of well-known political leaders
"As high-stakes elections approach in the U.S. and European Union, publicly available artificial intelligence tools can be easily weaponized to churn out convincing election lies in the voices of leading political figures, a digital civil rights group said Friday.
Researchers at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Countering Digital Hate tested six of the most popular AI voice-cloning tools to see if they would generate audio clips of five false statements about elections in the voices of eight prominent American and European politicians.
In a total of 240 tests, the tools generated convincing voice clones in 193 cases, or 80% of the time, the group found. In one clip, a fake U.S. President Joe Biden says election officials count each of his votes twice. In another, a fake French President Emmanuel Macron warns citizens not to vote because of bomb threats at the polls."
Varun Magesh∗ Stanford University; Faiz Surani∗ Stanford University; Matthew Dahl, Yale University; Mirac Suzgun, Stanford University; Christopher D. Manning, Stanford University; Daniel E. Ho† Stanford University, Stanford University
Hallucination-Free? Assessing the Reliability of Leading AI Legal Research Tools
"Abstract
Legal practice has witnessed a sharp rise in products incorporating artificial intelligence (AI). Such tools are designed to assist with a wide range of core legal tasks, from search and summarization of caselaw to document drafting. But the large language models used in these tools are prone to “hallucinate,” or make up false information, making their use risky in high-stakes domains. Recently, certain legal research providers have touted methods such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) as “eliminating” (Casetext, 2023) or “avoid[ing]” hallucinations (Thomson Reuters, 2023), or guaranteeing “hallucination-free” legal citations (LexisNexis, 2023). Because of the closed nature of these systems, systematically assessing these claims is challenging. In this article, we design and report on the first pre- registered empirical evaluation of AI-driven legal research tools. We demonstrate that the providers’ claims are overstated. While hallucinations are reduced relative to general-purpose chatbots (GPT-4), we find that the AI research tools made by LexisNexis (Lexis+ AI) and Thomson Reuters (Westlaw AI-Assisted Research and Ask Practical Law AI) each hallucinate between 17% and 33% of the time. We also document substantial differences between systems in responsiveness and accuracy. Our article makes four key contributions. It is the first to assess and report the performance of RAG-based proprietary legal AI tools. Second, it introduces a com- prehensive, preregistered dataset for identifying and understanding vulnerabilities in these systems. Third, it proposes a clear typology for differentiating between hallucinations and accurate legal responses. Last, it provides evidence to inform the responsibilities of legal professionals in supervising and verifying AI outputs, which remains a central open question for the responsible integration of AI into law.1"
John Naughton, The Guardian; Sure, Google’s AI overviews could be useful – if you like eating rocks
"To date, some of this searching suggests subhuman capabilities, or perhaps just human-level gullibility. At any rate, users have been told that glue is useful for ensuring that cheese sticks to pizza, that they could stare at the sun for for up to 30 minutes, and that geologists suggest eating one rock per day (presumably to combat iron deficiency). Memo to Google: do not train your AI on Reddit or the Onion."
Diana Panuncial , American Libraries; Using AI Responsibly
"Navigating misinformation and weighing ethical and privacy issues in artificial intelligence (AI) were top of mind for the panelists at “AI and Libraries: A Discussion on the Future,” a January 21 session at the American Library Association’s 2024 LibLearnX Conference in Baltimore. Flowers was joined by Virginia Cononie, assistant librarian and coordinator of research at University of South Carolina Upstate in Spartanburg; Dray MacFarlane, cofounder of Tasio, an AI consulting company; and Juan Rubio, digital media learning program manager for Seattle Public Library (SPL).
Rubio, who used AI to create a tool to help teens at SPL reflect on their mental health and well-being, said there is excitement behind the technology and how it can be harnessed, but there should also be efforts to educate patrons on how to use it responsibly.
“I think ethical use of AI comes with creating ethical people,” he said, adding that SPL has been thinking about implementing guidelines for using AI. “Be very aware of your positionality [as librarians], because I think we are in a place of privilege—not necessarily of money or power, but of knowledge.”"
DAVID GILBERT , Wired; Maine Mass Shooting Disinformation Floods Social Media as Suspect Remains at Large
"“It’s as if everyone thinks disinformation is a problem, but not for them personally—only for other people,” Caroline Orr, a behavioral scientist and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Maryland who tracks disinformation online, wrote on X, adding: “When 20+ people are murdered in a mass shooting, and the reaction of most people on this website is: ‘How can I use this to push a political agenda?’ or ‘How can I use this to attack XYZ person?’ … that reflects something far more disturbing.”"
Heather Kelly, The Washington Post; Bizarre AI-generated products are in stores. Here’s how to avoid them.
"However, in situations where AI’s involvement is not obvious or desired, a product can be a scam, outright fraud and even dangerous, experts say...
When it comes to books, incorrect information can be dangerous. Amazon recently removed a guide on foraging for mushrooms that some readers claimed was generated by AI and could have given incorrect advice about what mushrooms were edible or poisonous.
“The accuracy problem is real,” said Ravit Dotan, an AI ethics researcher and adviser. “People don’t understand that textual generated AI is not optimized to generate truth. It’s optimized to generate text that’s compelling.”"
Seth Kugel and ; A New Frontier for Travel Scammers: A.I.-Generated Guidebooks
"Though she didn’t know it at the time, Ms. Kolsky had fallen victim to a new form of travel scam: shoddy guidebooks that appear to be compiled with the help of generative artificial intelligence, self-published and bolstered by sham reviews, that have proliferated in recent months on Amazon.
The books are the result of a swirling mix of modern tools: A.I. apps that can produce text and fake portraits; websites with a seemingly endless array of stock photos and graphics; self-publishing platforms — like Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing — with few guardrails against the use of A.I.; and the ability to solicit, purchase and post phony online reviews, which runs counter to Amazon’s policies and may soon face increased regulation from the Federal Trade Commission.
The use of these tools in tandem has allowed the books to rise near the top of Amazon search results and sometimes garner Amazon endorsements such as “#1 Travel Guide on Alaska.”"
Laura Meckler, The Washington Post; Florida schools drop AP Psychology after state says it violates the law
"Large school districts across Florida are dropping plans to offer Advanced Placement Psychology, heeding a warning from state officials that the course’s discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity violates state law...
The conflict stems from Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, dubbed by opponents as the “don’t say gay” bill, which outlaws classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade. In April, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s Education Department expanded the prohibition to include all grades. Teachers who violate the ban could see their teaching licenses suspended or revoked.
The AP Psychology course asks students to “describe how sex and gender influence socialization and other aspects of development.” The College Board said this element of the class had been present since the course was launched in 1993. Florida schools have offered the class every year since then, an official said.
It’s just one in a string of curriculum and book battles raging across Florida as the state seeks to limit student exposure to certain lessons around race and gender...
On Friday, after meeting with superintendents, Diaz wrote them to say he was not banning or even discouraging schools from offering the AP Psychology course. He had told them the same thing a day earlier, while also cautioning against violating state law."
Neal Katyal , The Washington Post; Why the Trump trial should be televised
"The upcoming trial of United States v. Donald J. Trump will rank with Marbury v. Madison, Brown v. Board of Education and Dred Scott v. Sandford as a defining moment for our history and our values as a people. And yet, federal law will prevent all but a handful of Americans from actually seeing what is happening in the trial. We will be relegated to perusing cold transcripts and secondhand descriptions. The law must be changed...
Most important, live (or near-live) broadcasting lets Americans see for themselves what is happening in the courtroom and would go a long way toward reassuring them that justice is being done. They would be less vulnerable to the distortions and misrepresentations that will inevitably be part of the highly charged, politicized discussion flooding the country as the trial plays out. Justice Louis Brandeis’s observation that “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants” is absolutely apt here."
TIM DICKINSON , Rolling Stone; Trump Told Pence ‘You’re Too Honest’ When He Objected to Jan. 6 Scheme
"The new indictment of Donald Trump on conspiracy charges related to his attempts to subvert the results of the 2020 election makes clear that the then-president not only made false claims about who won the presidency, but “knew that they were false.”
Trump’s tortured relationship with the truth is highlighted in an exchange he allegedly had with Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 1, 2021. Trump, the indictment says, called Pence and “berated him” because Pence opposed efforts to claim that he alone had the power, in his ceremonial role presiding over the counting of the votes of the Electoral College, to reject the official tallies from the states.
As recounted in the indictment, Pence told Trump that — as he understood the laws of our land — there was no constitutional authority invested in the vice president to make such a move.
Trump then allegedly lit into Pence, telling him: “You’re too honest.”"
Mike Ives, The New York Times; How ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’ Defied Top 40 Logic
"Yet unlike songs that use a real-life story as the basis for embellishment, Mr. Lightfoot’s ballad hewed precisely to the real-life details. The weight of the ore, for example — “26,000 tons more than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty” — was accurate. So was the number of times that the church bell chimed in Detroit.
Decades later, Mr. Lightfoot changed the lyrics slightly after investigations into the accident revealed that waves, not crew error, had led to the shipwreck. In the new lyrics, he sang that it got dark at 7 that November night on Lake Superior — not that a main hatchway caved in.
“That’s the kind of meticulous, looking-for-the-truth kind of guy that he was,” Mr. Greenberg said."
Doina Chiacu, Reuters; Republicans censure Cheney, Kinzinger, call Jan. 6 probe attack on 'legitimate political discourse'
"The Republican Party on Friday censured U.S. Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for joining Congress' investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack and Donald Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat, calling the probe an attack on "legitimate political discourse."...
The resolution censuring Cheney and Kinzinger, approved at a Republican National Committee meeting in Salt Lake City, accused them of "participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse."
Thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol that day, smashing windows, assaulting police officers and sending lawmakers and then-Vice President Mike Pence running for their lives after Trump made a fiery speech repeating his false claims that his election defeat was the result of widespread fraud."
KARLA POMERO, Northern Wyoming News; Ethics of news photos in a digital world
"Ethically, for a news photo there is not much you can or should manipulate. We take out some of the yellow when shooting photos in certain locations due to the overhead lighting.
If using a flash and the lighting is wrong and I get people with red eyes I will use the tool to remove the red eyes because I know those people did not have red eyes at the time I took the photo.
That’s the key in news photography. The news photo must tell the story of what was happening at that exact moment, where it was taken at that moment. You must not alter the story and altering the photo alters that story.
If you photoshop out things in the background of a photo because they may be distracting – that’s altering history, the history of that photo.
One of the students said they will combine photos to get the exact composite they want. You can do that for art. You can not do that when telling news through photos."
