The whole business of 'fake news' interests me and I notice there was a Bkk Post Opinion piece on it (6 Jun). Since the year dot when newspapers started reporting 'news' people have quite naturally leaned towards those papers which tended to mesh with their own ideas. So in the UK we had the “Torygraph' for Conservative supporters, The Guardian for the more Liberal minded, The Sun for those who just liked big t!t$, and so on. Radio and television were slower to show bias and there was a time when the BBC was really considered an impartial commentator – yes, really!
But then came the growth of IT and Social Media. Now the gloves are really off. Who is to say what news is for real and what is fake? Everyone still follows whatever news outlet appeals to their views, but it must be said that there is little attempt at what might be termed 'balanced discussion'. The man on the Clapham omnibus may be considered to be a lot more worldly wise, but IT and social media have merely served to entrench his opinions.
Now along come AI, ChatGPT et al and the whole situation regarding fake as opposed to genuine news is becoming muddied further. Is the man on the Clapham omnibus capable of discerning fake from real? Does he even think about it? Worse: does the well educated person have any method of filtering news and, if what he or she reads accords with preconceived opinions, is that person going to bother?
We – the great mass of people, who have long relied on reporters, pundits, experts etc to provide us with news now have absolutely no way of deciding whether what we see or hear is real or fake, apart from our own experience and intuition.
Is all this important? Well yes, I think it probably is and as we have chosen to live in Thailand, the more worldly wise the young people become, the more they are able to question their teachers instead of simply accepting everything they are told, the more they can challenge the accepted 'norms', perhaps the better able able they will be to make informed decisions. I know pigs might fly, but I think the last election result has given a start to this process.