With the advent of new technology in the field of journalism, the question of truth and falsehood has perhaps never been so present. State of media and information in the age of AI.
“There is a force of falsehood. We don’t like to be contradicted. » warns the famous physicist Étienne Klein, producer of the show “La conversation scientifique” on France Culture. He adds: “There is good and bad critical thinking like good and bad cholesterol. The good one is where thinking is critical of itself. The bad when you never doubt yourself again, but only others. » He refers in particular to “flatists”, those who believe that the Earth is flat via the world of conspiracy, fed by false social networks. “We find flat people all around the globe” he laughs while deploring that we have a “poor knowledge of knowledge.”
The effects of disinformation are in fact amplified with AI, assure all the participants of the round table, who recall how precise “deepfakes” have become. Falsified images that can influence an election at the last moment. “AI makes it possible to produce disinformation with industrial means,” warns Julien Pain, journalist, presenter of the show “Vrai ou Faux” on franceinfo.tv. He believes that the “fact-checker” journalist has less and less strength in the face of new disinformation processes via AI.
AI versus AI
“AI is the total reflection of who we are,” insists Françoise Soulié-Fogelman, scientific advisor at the France IA Hub, “we must learn to use the beast. The more we use it, the more we learn and this is how we can thwart misinformation. With AI. » Or AI against AI. “Let’s not forget that AI has biases like we do,” insists Julien Pain, who pleads for the general public to rediscover a bond of trust with the experts that are journalists.
The question is also how journalists themselves use AI. The designer KAK came to testify about the use of the machine in the field of press cartoons and admits that translators from the newspaper L’Opinion have already been replaced by AI. “Forty years ago, when I was a student, it took us weeks to find an answer. There was a real intellectual joy in seeking the truth. Today, my students ask the AI and have it in seconds. We have lost this intellectual joy,” says Étienne Klein, saddened.
By Jean-Baptiste Gauvin
