~a column by Colleen O’Brien
AI is on the march. I’ve come across five “news” items that were real ‘fake news’, to cop a phrase from an inveterate faker.
The first two fakes were hour-long videos by Rachel Maddow talking about Canada essentially ghosting the US and never dealing with them again; and another one of Maddow explaining how Walmart had to leave America immediately and form its headquarters elsewhere because the tariffs were hurting their bottom line; and the fourth fake was Melania filing a suit in a court confessing ALL about her husband Donald J. Trump.
The fifth fake I came across while cruising through Facebook: someone posted a concise summary of a TV movie called “Finding the Light” made by Tom Hanks about the Epstein files. It began with a solemn overview:
“The moment the first episode aired, millions of viewers were left in stunned silence. No dramatic music, no flowery narration — only sealed files, testimonies that had once been ignored, and timelines showing how the truth had been suffocated over the course of a decade. The program gradually revealed how a lone woman, Virginia Giuffre, was pushed to the margins of public attention while powerful names remained behind a wall of silence.
“Every detail presented raised a chilling question: Who ordered the cover-up? Who benefited from this forced forgetting? And more importantly — if not now, then when would justice be allowed to appear on national television?
“Finding the Light” is not just a program. It is a declaration that some truths, no matter how long they are buried, will always find their way back into the light.”
All these interesting ‘broadcasts’ were untrue.
Who’s to know?
I fell for the first one until switching to a news station when it was over. MS NOW is where Maddow reports. There was no such breaking news about Canada ignoring us completely – there or elsewhere — so I knew the video I’d watched was fake. I was a tad rattled, however, because I had fallen for it, cheering Canada on for having the guts and integrity to ignore the threats of their loud-mouthed neighbor tending the ash heap of tariffed commerce.
The second video, about Walmart, was just as compelling. It was serious about its reluctant need to abandon 4600 centers, supercenters and markets in the U.S. and placing them elsewhere in the world (their world total is 10,955 stores) where their choice of country would not tariff them. This particular AI fakery was touching to the point of heart-breaking in the compassionate guilt in abandoning the poorest shoppers in America. But, again, no news on the news stations, You Tube, TikTok or Threads.
The fourth fake I found on trusted 20-year-old Facebook, the world’s largest social media platform. It is the site used by seven out of 10 individuals (83 percent of the US population alone, 47 percent Republicans, 46 percent Democrats), informing each other about themselves, the news as they absorb it and anything else that comes into their purview. There is no fact-check from one friend to another.
According to Google Rules for Checking AI Content
1. Fact-check everything using Snopes or Google Fact Check Explorer. This advice, as you might have noticed, comes from Google itself, which might seem to be not the best source, but Google does Transparency Reports, undergoes regular third-party audits and follows seven principles of responsibility:
–Info must be socially beneficia.
–Info must avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias.
–Answers must be built and evaluated for safety
–Answers must be accountable to people.
–Google must incorporate privacy principles.
–Answers must uphold high standards of scientific excellence.
–Info must be made available for uses that accord with these principles.
2. Verify sources. For example, if there’s a quote from U.S. Attorney General Pamela Jo Bondi, look up other sources for believability.
3. Proofread for quality — monotonous tone, unnatural transitions, repetitive wording.
4. Check for bias — stereotypes, discriminatory language, hyperbole. (This may be difficult, as FOX is good at all three; as are a few of the broadcasters on MS NOW.)
5. Review for originality and copyright — for example, compare a phrase with a Wikipedia article, or Google answers to a question itself. (Again, this feels like asking the wrong entity, but polymath Google does know everything.)
6. AI often repeats words it seems to like.
7. When you come across an AI article, spread the word.
8. Be on the lookout for anything too good to be true, or too horrible to be believable.
I-Phones like to fool with my brain capacity each night as they upgrade me. I’ve known for a quarter of a century that my computer, no matter who he has been, is and will be, is beyond my tolerance for complicated devices. And now I have to figure out every time I read or hear something if it’s fact or fake. If I had any goodness left in me, I guess I could thank Trump’s preparing me for the lie at all times, wherever it comes from. But I won’t be doing that.
