Every piece of media that I consume – whether that be a meaningless Instagram post or a formal article – I can’t help but wonder: is this AI? I catch myself at times doing a double-take, almost overlooking something to be real before really taking a good look. The attempts of a bot to imitate a human used to be something of a comedy even a year ago, but now I sometimes need to look at something 3 or 4 times, even supposed live footage sometimes, before I can come to a conclusion. This prompts me to question: “How many people saw this an believed this was real?”, “How many AI posts have I glossed over that I will never know about?”. And it only gets worse as time progresses, getting more accurate and terrifying every day.
But it’s not as simple as ‘human or not human?’. Misguidance can just as easily be achieved the human way, and this way is much less likely to be accidental. Attention is therefore vital for the consumption of all types of media.
Many methods have been developed by experts to keep people equipped, however, a variety of which were shared with us by digital literacy expert Mike Caulfield. One of these cases was the SIFT method (short for Stop, Investigate, Find, Trace), a method of information verification. The idea is that upon being exposed to a source, one should first stop to consider the context of their situation and the content of the source, before investigating the nature of the author. This step is not only important simply to assess the credibility and authority of creator, but also to analyzes any important aspects of their identity that should alter one’s interpretation of the source. Then, the reader should attempt to find other related sources (ideally from more credible sources) that may support or refute the information put forth by the source in question, or simply even to give the reader more context for a better understanding. Finally, it is important to attempt to trace any references made by the author back to their original context. This allows the reader to properly assign the credit of a reference in its true, full context, without any nuances contrued by the author.
The internet has at once become the most useful and prospective but also the most destructive influence on knowledge in the present day. Before the internet, the ability of information to become widespread was an integral function of its credibility and verifiability. With the increasing pervasiveness of the internet, the spread of knowledge and dissolution of censorship is at an all-time high, but it instills a devastating trend. Creators feel less and less of a need to to cite information that they pass of, and people no longer feel the need to reference information from credible sources. I see it in everyone around me; my friends, family, peersare becoming lazier and lazier. The goal for so many is to complete their work as quickly and painlessly as possible, and this is perfectly facilitated by internet access. It is something that immensely rewards those with evaluative thinking and logical rationale while at the same time totally discouraging the individual from critical thought and developing the skills to best use it.
It is for this reason that I find verification methods like these to be so useful. Not particularily because people lack the verification skills to properly assess online sources (although many do), but because so many people lack the initial exertion to attempt to think critically about a source; good interpretation of sources can be taught and learned, but the willingness to employ these skills is not nearly as simple. People who possess these skills are almost as easily taken victim by misinformation because they do not apply them – almost every Canadian teen has been educated in this way to some extent, I still observe this issue in almost every aspect of my life; in myself at times. While the fundamental importance of skills taught by the SIFT method are undeniably important, I find methods like these to be so valuable because it triggers the reader to employ a second thought, to genuinely evaluate the information they are given, rather than thoughtlessly meandering by.