UMD Seminar Explores AI Deep Fakes

DULUTH, Minn. — The University of Minnesota Duluth hosted an online seminar regarding the potential threat of artificial Intelligence leading to an “info-pocalypse.”

The meeting featured two professors of philosophy from Northeastern University who spoke about how digital fakes, fake news, and bots posing as humans have the potential to confuse people to the point of not knowing if it’s real or fake. The guest speakers say that the confusion created by AI can give people false beliefs about the world, leading to distrust in the media.

“I think it’s, I mean, first thing I’d say, it’s very worrying,” said Kay Mathiesen, professor of philosophy at Northeastern University.

UMD professors share similar thoughts on AI becoming a worrying topic, especially when it comes to platforms like Sora, which created this video about the government banning cigarettes in America.

“In an environment where there is a lot of misinformation and disinformation circulating around, I think it is important to slow down and go when we do see that neat video, that funny video, that outrageous video, stop and ask ourselves, is that too good to be true,” said Alexis Elder, head of the philosophy department at UMD.

More information, including stuff about the Information Literacy Community of Practice, can be found on their Google site.