Disinformation risks and media principles in age of AI

The media space in Kenya is witnessing widespread exposure to Artificial Intelligence technologies, with both professional and citizen journalists tapping into the technology.

Not to be left behind, the corporate world is also exploring AI technology in creating content to market their products and for brand visibility.

This has given a fresh breath in unlocking creativity in media messages and at large improving the art of storytelling.

Artificial Intelligence offers journalists a wide range of options to tell stories that inform, educate and entertain. With the potential to create text, images, audio, or video content, AI offers journalists and content creators a wide range of options.

It offers them an opportunity to create, recreate while imagining even that which does not exist naturally.

But how ethical is AI?

The Media Council Act, 2013 provides a Code of Conduct for the practice of journalism in Kenya, which is a guiding principle for journalists, media practitioners and media enteprises.

The digital media wave in the Kenyan media, and the growth of citizen journalism have been a risk to media ethics, where the minimal gatekeeping in online media spaces has led to visible breach of the principles in the code of conduct manual.

Here comes Artificial Intelligence, and the media is faced with a fresh challenge of the various ethical dilemmas that emerge from adoption and use of AI technologies.

Since the growing penetration of AI in the media cannot be suppressed, coming up with solutions to promote responsible use of AI is the way forward.

In this regard, the Media Council of Kenya has set its foot forward in developing guidelines and for responsible use of AI, to ensure adherence to ethical principles.

One major concern on ethical risks posed by AI is privacy. This is brought about by the use of private data to train Large Language Models (LLMs), and disregard of permissions in data mining.

Guided by the principles of originality in, journalists are concerned on whether using AI-generated content, or using AI to generate ideas is appropriate.

In the AI age, the principle of accuracy is also under threat as a result of errors made through AI hallucinations.

Another ethical dilemma is the humanity aspect in journalism, where AI has been seen as a risk to the emotional aspect of media content.

Deepfakes and disinformation risks

Disinformation has become a major threat in the AI revolution, where deepfake content created using AI tools is now becoming common.

While deepfakes play an important role in entertainment, broadening creativity and imaginations, they have posed a threat to media.

In its 2024 globalrisks report, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has ranked AI-generated disinformation and misinformation as one of the negative most severe global risks anticipated over the next two years.

The report, released in January 2024, showed that 53% of respondents see the likelihood of AI-generated dis/misinformation to present a material crisis on a global scale in 2024.

This poses a threat to journalism, where deepfakes can be used to manipulate media content. As a result of this AI-powered disinformation the mass media is at risk of suffering from fake content.

AI as a solution to disinformation

It is in AI that also lies a solution to countering disinformation in the media.

The use of fact checking tools such as Google reverse image search, factiverse, FullFact, Weverify can be helpful in counteri ng disinformation.

Deepfake detectors, if used appropriately in fact checking and verification of media content can solve this puzzle.

There are also other tools such as AI or Not, Sensity AI and Microsoft’s video authenticator which can be used to counter disinformation.

This emphasizes the importance of disclosure in using AI-generated content, where there is no intention to misinform, mislead or cause harm.