Mis/disinformation can come in many different forms, ranging from funny April Fool's Day jokes to intentionally changing information to fit political goals. The below infographic shows the 7 main types of mis/disinformation ranging from low harm to high harm.
With the development of technology, fake news has evolved over the years. One example of this change is through the increased use of AI (Artificial Intelligence) to create and disseminate false information. AI can create false images, videos, or audio and may depict real of non-existent people. These AI-generated images mimicking real people for the purposes of humor or to discredit that person are called deepfakes. See one example below of Pope Francis wearing a puffer jacket.
How can you tell it is AI-generated?
Another example of AI-generated mis/disinformation is the ad below. Whilst browsing a website, I came across this ad for an article titled, "Illinois College Named Among the Worst in US." When I clicked the link to read the article, it listed many colleges that the article argued was the "worst" but Illinois College was not listed. In fact, when I went to visit family in California, the article title changed to "Stanford University Named Among the Worst in US," but the image and the article itself remained the same. Why did this happen? The ad website used AI to create click-bait images and titles with the purpose of getting heavier traffic on their website. The title of which college was the "worst in the US" changed because the AI registered that my computer was in a different geographic location and so chose a name of a college that I likely knew of or was affiliated with. This is a prime example of how AI is developing to create more specific mis/disinformation.
