How democracies die
Two developments over the past week offered a chilling glimpse into the future of disinformation. First, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was killed after the helicopter he was riding in crashed, triggering an explosion of misinformation posted by fake accounts across social media, some sporting blue “verified” check marks on X. Researchers say that it is not just the sheer volume of fake news that they find unprecedented, but it is also the helplessness they feel in combating it — platforms have largely dismantled the “trust and safety” teams that used to collaborate with journalists to fact-check and remove false information. “We're now in the information environment those who have long reported on disinformation warned about,” said Jane Lytvynenko, one of my favorite journalists on the disinfo beat. “ai-generated manipulation is vast, moderation is sparse, and harmful junk is filling the knowledge gap left by crumbling news organizations.”
Second, Scarlett Johansson’s dispute with OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman this week offered another insight into our AI-driven future. The actor accused Altman of stealing her voice, after she explicitly refused to give his company permission to use it for their ChatGPT tool. Here’s her full statement via NPR’s tech reporter Bobby Allyn. Altman apologized and said he never intended the voice to resemble hers. Still, OpenAI pulled the voice, called “Sky,” after Johansson threatened to sue. Welcome to the future, where anyone can take your voice (and then say they didn’t mean it).
Information pollution — whether it is caused by humans or AI — is certainly a big reason behind our dwindling attention spans. Between former U.S. President Donald Trump’s hush money trial, Russia’s terrifying new offensive in Ukraine, events in the Middle East and everything else happening in the world, it’s not hard to miss the story about the possible disappearance of an entire democracy from the world map. The democracy is Georgia, where protesters have stepped out in force to demonstrate against what they believe is an existential threat to their freedoms and the country’s sovereignty after the government introduced a so-called foreign agents law, closely modeled after Russia’s own legislation. But even those who are understandably more consumed by problems closer to home may want to pay attention. Georgia could be a warning to the U.S. and a case study of how democracies die.