Truth
There are facts and then there’s what’s true….If the truth is generally defined as the quality of being in accord with fact or reality, representing the accurate state of things. It is often considered the opposite of falsehood or deception. It can be debated across philosophy, science, and personal belief systems. Ultimately Truth serves as a fundamental map for understanding the world and guiding our conduct.
So what is the truth and how do we find it? How do we measure the many data points we take in against reality, and what are the facts? As more and more of us rely on social media for “our News”, how do we know what’s “fake news” or factual based events anymore? Deep fakes and AI generated content on social media have blurred the ability to agree with facts or reality, as so much of what comes at us is curated based on “the algorithm. Screen time and scrolling clips now influence what we believe, what we value and who we are. We’re no longer even paying attention to where the content is coming from. Trusted source or “bad actor” who has paid for our attention, it simply shows up as curated content in our feed. Is it people we trust, know, share common beliefs? Or an influencer who’s creating content to get likes and clicks? Is it a human being, AI chat bots, foreign countries, or anarchistic actors who have paid for our attention based upon the massive amount of demographic, and psychographic data at their disposal? Who is influencing our truths and what is it doing to our society, culture, and fabric as a nation and as a people?
I get that after a stressful day wanting to jump on “the gram” to check out and get the dopamine shots for a half hour of mindless scrolling to forget our worries. But there’s a small voice in my head that keeps saying “change your perspective, remain mindful and intentional, and realize what you’re exposing yourself to in these vulnerable moments”. Because in this reality we now find ourselves in, news isn’t news, and in many cases isn’t even real or necessarily factual. It is built to manipulate us by an algorithm that’s designed to change our minds and drive us toward a goal (give money, attention, time, information etc or influence us in some way). I have to remind myself to be more present in the real word not the virtual one.
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As I attended a workshop on how AI will shape the future of DevSecOps, the instructor made an interesting observation. He said “We have to remember when we ask our favorite AI chatbot a question, that the AI will have an opinon… We all have opinions based upon The Truth or being in accord with fact or reality, representing the accurate state of things as we see them, based on how we’ve been “trained”. But why do we have the tendency to assume that AI’s opinion which is also based on a reality, representing the accurate state of things based on how it sees them and how it’s been “trained” is right, that it’s the truth?”
Using AI chat bots can help provide additional information but adding these statements to your chat can help you decide how accurate the responses are.
“Think step by step before providing your final answer and explain your reasoning”
And this final ask to help see how the AI arrived at the result it provided.
“Can you create a single prompt with everything that is needed to get to this end result.”
