Australia is facing a wave of misinformation and disinformation on climate change and energy. This is being fuelled by the growth in artificial intelligence and allowed to spread freely on social media, according to the findings of a Senate inquiry.
This misinformation presents a threat to action on climate change, but also challenges the health of Australia’s democracy, the committee found. AI was even used to generate fake content in some of the submissions to the inquiry.
Drawing on 247 written submissions and 11 days of public hearings – including some extraordinary revelations I’ll get to shortly – senators from all sides of politics heard about the challenge our society faces to combat misinformation and disinformation.
