AI chatbots may be better than search engines in guarding against foreign propaganda
An NPR experiment conducted with NewsGuard found that AI chatbots are generally effective at pushing back against foreign state-sponsored propaganda. However, AI-generated summaries at the top of search engine results were found to be less reliable and warrant more user caution.
Why it matters
As AI becomes a primary source of information, understanding its ability to filter misinformation is critical for digital literacy and national security.
Since AI chatbots exploded in popularity and Google started offering AI-generated answers, people who research foreign influence campaigns have expressed concern that some governments may poison AI-generated answers with false narratives. But an experiment NPR conducted with NewsGuard, a company that monitors online falsehoods and issues ratings about the reliability of online news sources, found that popular AI chatbots mostly pushed back against false narratives spread by foreign states. AI summaries that are increasingly found at the top of search engine results didn't perform as well. But overall, they still pushed back against state-spread falsehoods a majority of the time.
The article presents a balanced experimental finding without taking a strong ideological stance, focusing on technical performance.
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