Introduction
Only a few years ago, the advancement of artificial intelligence was portrayed in glowing terms. Specialists from diverse areas envisaged how it might benefit physicians, interpreters, and representatives from various other professions. However, when the GPT language model advanced to the point that the texts generated by it were nearly indistinguishable from those produced by humans, attitudes regarding artificial intelligence (AI) shifted radically. Key researchers in the field have joined the hardline opponents of this technique.
The digital world’s borders are expanding, and with the rapid growth of artificial intelligence capabilities, concerns about its use in manufacturing and the spread of fake news are increasing, especially in countries such as Kuwait. Kuwait is a nation in southwestern Asia that shares borders with Iraq in the northwest and Saudi Arabia in the south and southwest. Kuwait is an advanced country where the use of AI is prevalent daily. The skill of artificial intelligence has already reached a level where it can create and disseminate fake news, which can hurt Kuwaiti society.
Developing Misinformation
When the volume of information doubles in a few years due to the emergence of electronic media, conventional boundaries are completely erased, and a single information space is organized, which is critical for the formation of public consciousness. This area, along with other elements, plays a significant role in shaping public opinion, social mood, and overall public consciousness. Digital technology, particularly neural network technology, has provided new options for businesses (mainly media companies and public relations professionals), political organizations, and intelligence services to influence their target populations (Buhmann & White, 2022). Neural networks facilitate the collection and analysis of massive volumes of data in multiple formats, the generation and synthesis of information, and the control of nearly any person or object.
Attackers also employ new technology skills to obtain political and financial advantage. Technologies, in particular, are being used to generate fake news – intentionally misleading “news” items published through the media to misinform individuals, influence political and economic processes, and conduct information warfare. The “efficiency” of rumors and fakes in the “digital age” has significantly increased due to communication networks and technologies that allow instant, colorful, targeted distribution of a fake message to the “target audience,” and multiply the impact on mass consciousness due to resonance in the media space and digital media.
The use of AI technology to create Deepfakes – short movies in which users can alter actors’ faces, modify their voice, and execute other content manipulations – piqued the creative community’s curiosity. Deepfakes are already capable of producing images that are nearly photorealistic in quality (Pantserev, 2020). Deepfakes’ generative adversarial network technology works roughly as follows: there is a generator that generates fake images and a discriminator that attempts to distinguish between genuine and fake images. They are trained in tandem, with personnel constructing both the network that creates the fakes and the network that recognizes them. Since this property, it is basically impossible to build a network that can detect fakes – the second half of the program will quickly learn to trick it.
At this degree of technological progress, the “fakelike” character of the generated videos is clear. However, as time passes, such content will become increasingly realistic, with segments expanding and motions becoming more intricate. Such forgeries might be used to create reputational harm, intervene in elections, manipulate consumer behavior, and even tamper with evidence in court.
Experts offer a comprehensive strategy for addressing issues, drawing on global experience (Pantserev, 2020). To begin with, Kuwaiti technology businesses will need to spend on developing systems capable of detecting Deepfake material. Government institutions, social media platforms, and the media, for their part, must tighten their information verification methods.
Finally, the public must be kept regularly informed about the hazards and limitations of Deepfake (Pantserev, 2020). It is crucial to prevent people from losing faith in all movies and visual media. In terms of legal practice, this is just as harmful as the fakes themselves, as visual materials constitute a key component of the evidence base in court.
AI in Kuwait
Kuwait was one of the first countries in the world to utilize artificial intelligence in developing a virtual news anchor for a TV program. The existence of such technology could pose a threat, as detractors could potentially hack into it and use it to spread misinformation. Kuwaiti TV broadcaster Kuwait News surprised social media fans by posting a brief clip of Fedha, a synthetic news presenter produced using artificial intelligence, according to the Daily Mail (Radford, 2023). She is a blonde woman with long hair, dressed in a black jacket and a white T-shirt. She reads the news in Arabic with a little accent and gestures with her hands.
In the video, she identifies herself as the first virtual news anchor in Kuwait and claims her purpose is to provide viewers with objective and reliable information (Radford, 2023). She also pledges to be “professional and independent” and wants fans to follow her news. The reactions to Fedha’s presence have been mixed. Some social media users applauded the technological leap and the quality of the visuals and animation.
There were also concerns that such technologies might be used to manipulate information and disseminate misinformation. Critics argue that the virtual anchor is far from perfect: her motions are unnatural and repetitious, and her voice sounds too computerized and fake (Radford, 2023). Kuwait is far from the first country to test with virtual news anchors. China debuted two such characters in 2018: one in Chinese and one in English (Radford, 2023). They were modeled like real journalists and were capable of mimicking their facial expressions and tone.
With such technology and the abundance of internet information, it is challenging for the general public to distinguish between content based on facts, half-truths, or falsehoods. Using digital platforms to broadcast things that society believes are real, even though they may not be, can significantly get others to accept them as accurate. This may be especially harmful to children and young people, who may be persuaded to adopt false worldviews that can harm them or others in the real world (Paschen, 2020). As the target of a fake attack, it is becoming increasingly complex for the average person to determine how valid a message is in the media stream; only experienced experts are often able to distinguish between quality fake and truthful information, sometimes only with the use of exceptional audio and video analysis software and neural network technologies.
Impact on Society
The manipulative influence of the information space on Kuwaiti public consciousness, which can be facilitated with the assistance of AI, is based on the systematic introduction of socio-psychological and socio-political myths into the mass consciousness. This involves a type of consciousness distortion, such as the development of false concepts. Disinformation also claims certain ideals and conventions that are often held on faith rather than through logical, critical thinking (Kaplan, 2020).
Fake becomes a full-fledged “instrument of political manipulation” of public perception. On the one hand, the growth of clip thinking has led to the creation of visual images that encode information in the context of the so-called information pandemic; when society is unable to focus on the holistic perception of information, it requires a rapid shift. On the other hand, a potentially disastrous result is the loss of contemporary man’s ability to think consciously and creatively, as visual representations are created for him by others, with the power to manipulate the recipient’s awareness through their assistance (Olan et al., 2022). This challenge is exacerbated by AI, which has the potential to impact Kuwaiti society.
Furthermore, AI can lead to the fragmentation of Kuwaiti public consciousness, which manifests itself in interpersonal misunderstanding, mistrust, a lack of constructive dialogue, and a lack of coordination in people’s behaviors. As is well known, fake news manipulates the psychology of perception, leaving an unpleasant imprint in the mind even after fact-checking is completed and the fake is identified. This is because false news, such as a fake image, possesses all the key features and attributes of actual truth, thereby immediately impacting the addressee’s consciousness and facilitating manipulative influence.
There is a manipulation of contemporary society’s essential values in the modern information society, as the central role of bogus information is manipulative, affecting mass consciousness. The purpose of information falsifiers is to flood the public mind with phony information, supplanting actual reality and casting doubt on the existence of objective facts (Olan et al., 2022). They may be able to go unpunished and control public opinion at will, thanks to the use of AI. Individuals, in particular, and society as a whole will lose their immunity to erroneous information and become oblivious to the distinction between truth and lies, authenticity and ersatz, good and evil, after being bombarded with them.
Conclusion
Thus, fake news is a current phenomenon in the information space, in which objective facts become less important than the emotional context and subjective interpretation of events. The purpose of fake news is to create a stir around fictitious information events by including intentionally inflammatory content that resonates with the audience. The primary task of fake news is to hijack the information agenda and confine it, so that the content of the fake news becomes an obsession for some time, subjugating the person’s consciousness who has fallen under its influence.
Kuwaiti society could be significantly affected by AI’s ability to spread fake news. This will be possible because the country is already utilizing this technology on television, which can be exploited by malicious actors. At the same time, in certain situations, fake news can be used to create fear and mass unrest, discredit government leaders and public figures, and propagandize the activities of terrorists and extremists. Fake news is a common phenomenon in modern information warfare.
The processes of fake news propagation are relatively simple: fakes comprising material of a purposely provocative nature that has a significant influence on the emotional domain of people are propagated in society through the so-called viral method, owing to the effect of “emotional contagion.” Disinformation may be created and transmitted using modern technology such as artificial intelligence. AI is already widely used in Kuwait, which raises concerns. This is why the government should take steps such as alerting the public and creating tools to detect false news.
References
Buhmann, A., & White, C. L. (2022). Artificial intelligence in public relations: Role and implications. In The Emerald Handbook of Computer-Mediated Communication and Social Media (pp. 625-638). Emerald Publishing Limited.
Kaplan, A. (2020). Artificial intelligence, social media, and fake news: Is this the end of democracy?Media & Society, 149.
Olan, F., Jayawickrama, U., Arakpogun, E. O., Suklan, J., & Liu, S. (2022). Fake news on social media: the Impact on Society. Information Systems Frontiers, 1-16.
Pantserev, K. A. (2020). The malicious use of AI-based deepfake technology as the new threat to psychological security and political stability. Cyber Defense in the Age of AI, Smart Societies and Augmented Humanity, 37-55.
Paschen, J. (2020). Investigating the emotional appeal of fake news using artificial intelligence and human contributions. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 29(2), 223-233.
Radford, A. (2023). Kuwait News Outlet unveils AI-generated presenter Fedha. BBC News.