As a professor, I long for the days when the biggest challenge in convincing students that the world is comprehensible through diligent study was countermessaging from their humanities professors, who cast doubt on the very concept of truth.
These days, students don’t know what to believe, and for good reason. President Trump, and those around him, regularly spout lies while telling their followers to dismiss “fake news” proffered by journalists he otherwise refers to as “enemies of the people.” During Trump’s first term, the Washington Post kept a running tally of Trump’s false claims, which topped out at over 30,000 before he left office. The torrent of falsehood continues this time around.
While not in the same league as Trump, Democratic politicians are no saints when it comes to truth-telling. Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, in their new book Original Sin, chronicle the strenuous efforts by Joe Biden, his advisors, and his family members to hide Biden’s declining mental and physical competence during his four years in office. With a few exceptions, the media largely abetted this cover-up.
Overall, two thirds of Americans find it difficult to know whether to believe what politicians say.
The polarization of older media, such as cable outlets and talk radio, has been augmented by the exponential growth of non-traditional news sources across various social media platforms. This fragmented media landscape has been colonized by bad actors pushing intentional disinformation, leading to the blurring of distinctions between the shrinking number of credible news sources that uphold traditional journalistic standards from the rest. Large majorities of Americans believe that made-up news and disinformation is a major problem and a source of eroding public trust in leaders and one another.
Technology provides access to more knowledge and information than ever before. Yet, paradoxically, this “progress” is actually feeding an epistemological crisis. Deep fakes and AI generated images and video make it impossible to trust one’s own eyes. To make matters worse, AI systems – upon which we are quickly becoming dependent for a wide variety of purposes – are prone to hallucinations – simply making up information in response to prompts. Some AI systems hallucinate 30-50% of the time.
Close to three years ago, when ChatGPT first became widely available, higher education went into panic mode as students gained the ability to generate entirely plausible essay papers by plugging assignment prompts into AI machines. Professors scrambled to cope with an epidemic of cheating.
Worse, the ease with which AI could accomplish many tasks – from writing prose, to computer coding, to producing works of art – threatened to undercut the traditional tools by which teachers helped students develop capacities for critical thinking and creativity. Why bother when the machine can accomplish these tasks quicker and better?
Now AI companies see higher education as a potential source of vast profits by pitching AI-infused learning tools. California State University recently described its headlong rush into AI-employment as “a bold step forward with an innovative artificial intelligence (AI) strategy designed to enhance student success and transform the educational experience. This forward-thinking initiative leverages AI-powered, personalized learning tools across all disciplines, ensuring students are well-prepared for an AI-driven workforce.” There is no doubt that some faculty and students have found creative ways to ensure that AI enhances learning rather than undercutting it. But also seems likely that ill-considered or even harmful AI usage to date outweighs best practices.
All of this makes for a difficult environment in which to help students navigate the search for truth. There are easy fixes, such as directing students to fact-checkers and discussing ways to evaluate the reliability of sources. More deeply, we examine the difference between fact and opinion, which is often a source of confusion. A fact can be empirically verified, while opinions are neither right nor wrong, but vary with the holder (e.g., I prefer chocolate ice cream, while my partner prefers vanilla). Deeper still, we explore the scientific method and the principles of logic as habits of mind that can provide one with the intellectual armour necessary to fend off falsehood.
Nevertheless, we live in an age when traditional institutional sources of knowledge are less trusted than ever and in which disinformation and even conspiratorial thinking are rampant. Higher education provides a counterweight to this crisis of confidence, but colleges and universities are themselves under attack while expertise is increasingly viewed with suspicion. Trying times indeed.
The Internationalist 