Tyler Cowen, Columnist

Too Much Misinformation? The Issue Is Demand, Not Supply

We should worry less about AI-generated lies and more about the humans seeking them out.

October 3, 2023 at 11:30 AM UTC

Tyler Cowen is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, a professor of economics at George Mason University and host of the Marginal Revolution blog.

Misinformation in the pre-AI era.
Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images North America

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With the US presidential election a little more than a year away, candidates and voters are bracing themselves for an “explosion” of AI-generated misinformation. Adding to the fear is that many research programs intended to study and counter misinformation, facing accusations of bias, are shutting down.

Given all this, I have a prediction: AI-generated misinformation will not be a major problem in the 2024 campaign. But that’s only because so many other forms of misinformation are already so rife.