Misinformation and ChatGPT

Misinformation is an important and relevant issue in our current society. It doesn’t take long for an incorrect statement to be shared across the numerous platforms that one interacts with every day (social media, reputable news sites, word of mouth, etc.). While ChatGPT can analyze patterns in training data, it does not have the human foresight to think critically about the data that it analyzes. Thereby, ChatGPT can be used to unintentionally amplify existing misinformation to users.

Since ChatGPT lacks human oversight when generating responses, it is unable to determine the credibility of the responses it generates. Furthermore, since ChatGPT can generate human-like sentences, it can generate sentences that sound plausible but are incorrect, contributing to the spread of misinformation. These sentences can be hard to identify and can make it hard for users to differentiate between factual and incorrect statements. This can contribute to the spread of misinformation.