“NoI don’t think (artificial intelligence) is the end of the world, but it is a new challenge, which has been getting more complicated day by day”, said Commander Santos Fernandes, head of the Planning division of the General Staff of the Navy, in conference “Trust in journalism, escape misinformation”, which takes place at Lusa’s headquarters in Lisbon.
The commander defended that we always tend to run after the damage, remembering the scandals with algorithms and social networks.
Despite believing that there is already “awareness of the problem”, otherwise it would not be discussed, Santos Fernandes warned that this is “a new world (…) and a huge threat”.
On this matter, the ‘president & Global Media Literacy Educator’ of the International Council for Media Literacy, Belinha de Abreu, stressed that artificial intelligence is already present in our lives, through Alexa, Siri or even a Joaquim, referring to to virtual assistants available on mobile phones, tablets and other ‘gadgets’.
However, he underlined that there is already talk of human rights for ‘robots’ so that they have “a little more control” over their own lives, which he said is almost a science fiction film that entails ethical problems.
“This comes to modify the idea that artificial intelligence is just a machine. It is a problem because we do not know what its power is”, he added.
Present at the same conference, researcher Vítor Tomé, questioned about the role of journalists in Portugal, in the face of disinformation and these technological advances, said that “people cannot want everything and now”, which he argued was impossible in terms of respect to information.
“Journalism today is a less recognized profession than it was. We say that professors have a lot of work, of course they do, but journalists often have three professions and a single salary”, he pointed out, exemplifying that the New York Times has around 3,000 journalists and Público 30.
At the conference, organized by Agência Lusa, the documentary “Trust Me”, by the North American Roko Belic, was also shown, which addresses misinformation in the digital age, using testimonials from scientists, government officials, psychologists and journalists.
“Trust Me” warns of how the public can detect the manipulation of sources and information, filtering what is factual and what is not, and thus preventing the proliferation of ‘fake news’.
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