People are more skeptical than ever about what they see online, according to new research. While it’s smart to have some doubt when it comes to the Internet, a new survey finds that the average American trusts less than half of what they see there.
The poll of 2-thousand U.S. adults reveals that they believe only 41% of what they see online is totally accurate, fact-based and created by a real human.
- They also believe that 23% of content on the Internet is completely false and purposely inaccurate or misleading, and that 36% falls somewhere in-between.
- Overall, three-quarters admit they trust the Internet less today than ever before.
- And 78% say it’s “never been worse” for trying to differentiate between what’s real and what’s not.
- The average American says they come across information they know or suspect was generated by AI five times a week, but for 15% it’s more than 10 times weekly.
- The most likely sources of misleading or AI-generated content are social media posts (48%), news articles (34%) and chatbots (32%).
- Respondents think half of the news stories and articles they see online include some element of AI, whether it’s the written content or images.
- Less than a third (31%) are confident they can tell whether a review for a product or service was written by AI or an actual human.
- The survey tested how good respondents were at doing this and it turns out, only three in 10 (30%) could correctly tell which was written by a human or AI.
- The most stressful situation for trying to tell whether they’re dealing with a person or a chatbot is when speaking to a customer service rep, according to 43%.
- More than three-quarters (78%) agree that businesses and vendors should be legally required to disclose whether AI is used in marketing, content, customer service or on their website.
Source: Talker
photo: GETTY
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