Viral-Artificial Intelligence-Zombie Information

Viral-Artificial Intelligence-Zombie Information.  Sound frightening? It should.  Let's consider each element of the hyphenated phrase in reverse order, using medical science as only one of many possible exemplars.  Zombie medical information was decried in a recent Nature article (July 2023) entitled "Medicine’s problem with ‘zombie’ trials." The scary suggestion is that "... at least one-quarter, and perhaps up to one-third, of trials contain problematic data".  Equally hair-raising is the authors' contention that such studies "...can be laundered into respectability when they are included in systematic reviews, which assess evidence across many studies and are often the basis for clinical guidelines."  So, that's the Zombie element. 

 

What about the Artificial Intelligence element?  Sticking with Nature, consider the 24 January 2023 paper entitled "Tools such as ChatGPT threaten transparent science; here are our ground rules for their use."  For this posting, the central addressed issue is the fear that “… an Artificial Intelligence large language model (LLM) could produce simplistic results, an incomplete literature review, or unreliable information” -- all very real possibilities. The authors advise: "First, no LLM tool will be accepted as a credited author on a research paper. That is because any attribution of authorship carries with it accountability for the work, and AI tools cannot take such responsibility. Second, researchers using LLM tools should document this use in the methods or acknowledgements sections. If a paper does not include these sections, the introduction or another appropriate section can be used to document the use of the LLM."

 

Left is the viral element, the one that could be the most apocalyptic of the three. We all know first-hand how rapidly fallacious information can metastasize.  Once posted on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, et cetera, the bogus “facts” literally can spread around the world and be accepted uncritically.

 

Together, the three elements of the Viral-Artificial Intelligence-Zombie Information triad can mean that invalid, unreliable information might be promulgated in ways that appear to come from highly credible sources.  That is more likely because CHATGPT mines much of its data from whatever cognitive viruses have invaded our medical, educational, and media platforms.  And the more extant that information, the more it is incorporated into the next information search by whatever means the search is conducted, including the next iteration of CHATGPT.

 

Does this mean anything substantive to you?  It will if you or an important someone on whom you depend, such as your physician, have been infected with Viral-Artificial Intelligence-Zombie Information.  I hope you and they are not.