AI and Fake News: Unpacking the Relationships within the Media Ecosystem

The field of AI has been rapidly evolving in recent years. We are in an era where AI is being applied within each and every sector of human activity. The relationship between AI and fake news is one of monumental importance, since such dynamics have significant consequences for the foundations of democratic societies. In this paper, we consider the relationship between AI and fake news in with particular reference to various segments of the media ecosystem that relate to the life cycle of fake news. Our analysis focuses on the segments of generation, propagation and mitigation of fake news. Within each of these segments, we unpack the relationships between AI and fake news, attempting to lay bare the intricacies of the connections. Our analysis reveals that the emergence of AI could potentially turbocharge fake news of various kinds, and this could have profound consequences for the sustainability of the media ecosystem. We hope that our analysis will inform deliberations on how the media ecosystem would be re-imagined to function meaningfully and sustainably in the AI era.

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