My relationship with it is normal: I know what to demand from it and what not to request just in case, as it might cut corners or lie. However, what to expect from it in the distant future I do not know, and I’m not ashamed, because the most experienced philosophers and IT specialists predict completely opposite things. One thing is clear: Artificial Intelligence will inevitably become a weapon in informational warfare, or rather, it already has. Not someday, but right now.
Powerful analyst and journalist Ihor Semenovolos in a recent publication on Russian strategic culture noted, among other things, a new stage of cognitive wars: with the active assistance of AI, the enemy will strive to pollute the information space, showering us with a cloud of generated messages that may contradict each other, as their goal is not to convince but to confuse. Added to this is what Semenovolos calls “semantic looting”: appropriating universally recognized concepts, giving them opposite meanings: antifascism, protection, aid, values. Pure Orwell: “war is peace.” By juggling meanings, one can achieve not just disorientation, but panic. Without the ability to filter information, you cannot rely on anything, you cannot believe in anything.
The fact that they are clumsy across the border, especially in terms of technology, should not deceive us: having a cheap reserve of manpower and still huge financial resources, they can compensate for quality with quantity, as they have always done. Especially since super-complex language models are not needed; one can make do with all available services, which, by the way, they did not invent either—stolen here too!
This is the most urgent, but just one of the dangers associated with the virtual sage that await us both during and after the end of the war. The basic prerequisites for them have been in place for quite some time. Here, I will allow myself to again refer to my recent book, where the topic is covered a bit more extensively. On June 7, 1962, New York Times columnist Walter Sullivan introduced the term “information explosion.” At that time, even before the advent of mass computers, the internet, and the rest of the treats we enjoy today, it was determined that the amount of information in the world was increasing by 30% per year—not just an exponent, but truly a nuclear exponent, but that was still just the beginning: now the volume increases 2-3 times every year.
Since for most readers, as well as for me, the unimaginable figure of 3-5 petabytes (5×1015) doesn’t mean much, I’ll return to a more understandable starting point. One average book “weighs” about 1 megabyte, that’s without pictures, the Library of Congress holds 30-40 million books, a typical large bookstore has 40-50 thousand titles. And a normal average reader can master about 3000 books in a lifetime. Thus, long before the boom of information technology, humans approached the limits of their natural cognitive capabilities. Israeli philosopher Yuval Noah Harari and British journalist Peter Pomerantsev define our time as the “age of information overload,” which we have no chance of logically comprehending, forming a logical picture of the world based on it.
A stream is called a stream because it carries a swimmer along an arbitrary trajectory; real news, truthful data, and valuable thoughts are impossible to distinguish among random messages, fragmented statements, speculations, entertainment, pranks, and more. This inadvertently leads to cognitive disorder, magical thinking, moral relativism, the search for simple solutions, and surrogate authorities. We have not yet considered inevitable deliberate influences, of which Kremlin propaganda is just a part.
Resisting this at the community level is futile; each person is doomed to seek salvation on their own. You can ban Telegram — workarounds and alternative platforms will emerge; after all, we don’t live in North Korea. So it’s better not to ban but to help each individual stay afloat, teaching informational hygiene. Yes, it’s slow, sometimes tedious, not always effective, but we learned literacy; completely illiterate people are not observed, so it’s worth including the skill to resist entropy in the virtual “emergency kit” as one of the prerequisites for survival and personal safety.
The popular media literacy courses today allow one to deal with lies, but the task is to initially limit its entry into personal space. Here are a few simple, if not universal, then quite practical recipes, and no, this is not censorship.
Firstly, when there is too much raw material to process into something nutritious, I should agree to the division of labor. If I am not a farmer, I will not grind wheat and bake bread myself, unless as a hobby. It’s wiser in the interests of quality and time-saving to delegate part of the cognitive process to specific agents authorized (by me, the consumer).
I understand that professional press has compromised itself, not only in our country. But no one obliges me to surrender to the mercy of the entire press; it is enough to choose one or two publications that match my set of values, whose integrity I have no particular suspicions about, and where fact-checking procedures are in principle anticipated. This doesn’t mean I will unquestioningly consume everything they offer me, but I have ensured a certain reasonable minimum of hygiene for myself.
Let me remind you of a quote from the American Russian-language writer with Riga-Kyiv roots, Alexander Genis, who once published in Tyzhden: “… Having lost to the internet, the newspaper [referring to his favorite newspaper, still “The New York Times”] has become smarter and now protects the reader from information as much as it shares it, selecting and revealing the most important.” Every word here is worth its weight in gold. The NYT’s historical motto is “All the news that’s fit to print,” that is, “All the news that deserves to be printed.” Previously, it was understood as an unachievable completeness and informativeness for others, a huge machine for extracting news and opinions, with emphasis on the word “all.” Now, it’s worth shifting the focus and concentrating on the word “deserves”: they will not feed me the unnecessary, dubious, or obviously foolish.
The newspaper (channel, station) as a separator and filter. That’s easier. I can, of course, take a defensive stance, claiming “they all lie,” “they’re all corrupt,” “they all work for the Office, oligarchs, the opposition, the Washington committee, etc.”—but that would only hurt me. Choosing a source isn’t a lifelong marriage, “till death do us part.” Ultimately, you can always check trust ratings and manipulation-free results—they are compiled by independent experts (if you trust them), regularly published, and available to the public. Alternatively, occasionally visit the same “New York Times,” “Telegraph,” “Economist”—just to synchronize. If it’s hard, AI can help.
Secondly, this allegedly created the biggest problem of our time: besides traditional publications, TV channels, and radio stations, there are social networks and bloggers, some of whom are also professionals. One must learn to use networks, too. No one forbids a knife just because it can cut you. A kettle can scald you, a stove can cause a fire, a car can hit a pedestrian. Children are taught to handle blades and fire carefully from the age of three, and dangerous items are kept out of their reach before that. We’re all adults here, we should catch up. Mindlessly scrolling through Facebook or Instagram is not meditation, it’s intellectual junk food, as Americans say. A hamburger is not to blame if you have excess weight and liver problems. I understand for many, scrolling through a feed has become a substitute for real-life communication, being less risky and emotionally costly. People have become hooked. So, if not a diet, then at least control over consumption is needed.
It’s not just about the physical time we spend wandering the network; a route and separation are crucial here. If possible, customize your feed so that only verified interlocutors appear. Don’t jump at a flashy YouTube headline. Limit yourself to watching or listening only to those whose opinions you inherently consider. Others’ recommendations should be noted but quarantined. And maximum personalization! I’m not ready to communicate with no-names, just as I don’t want to listen to a taxi driver’s thoughts on global financial markets unless he’s an investment banker and drives a taxi for pleasure. Of course, sometimes conversations with random companions can significantly broaden horizons, but not every day! Anonymous information is not just toxic; it isn’t even information!
And here is the central point of my agenda: any information is only considered information—not in the mathematical sense, but in the way we use the word daily—when it has an author. This idea was first expressed by physicist and philosopher of science Michael Polanyi, the author of the brilliant book “Personal Knowledge,” which unfortunately has not yet been translated here: any form of knowledge, even purely factual, contains a personal attachment, a hidden personal endorsement. For example, if a textbook states that “the current in conductors is directly proportional to the voltage,” this sentence also contains the author’s personal agreement: as if to say, I agree with this observation, consider it a physical law, and take responsibility for disseminating this knowledge further. There is a subjective attitude of the author in every statement, in every one! Communication implies subjectivity. If I tell someone gossip I heard from the neighbors, I am personally endorsing it. Conversely, when I state, “it has become known from anonymous sources…”, I imply: these sources are anonymous to you, but I know who they are, I won’t tell you, but I can vouch for them. And then people will reference me: not just some random rumor, but a correspondent from “Public” learned that… It works like that.
Have you noticed that when you like a post on Facebook or Instagram, you do so depending on the avatar—not because you want to please someone? The exact same phrase from someone you know carries a different meaning than from a no-name person. No wonder, as you subconsciously evaluate not only these words but also the sum of the previous words from the same poster, and this forms the necessary context, helping you understand “what the author wanted to say with this work.” Not to mention reputation: reputation, the degree of trust, guides you whether it’s even worth reading or maybe it’s just not worth it.
Sometimes what matters is not the name of the specific author, but the brand under which they operate. A brand that allows them to speak on its behalf and delegates a portion of its authority. I am a journalist of “Ukrainian Week,” a representative of the “Chesno” movement, a correspondent of Associated Press. A brand is also a name, just a collective one. There may be and will be impostors, fake accounts, hacked pages, these are all incidental expenses. The main thing is that a name is an electronic pass into my personal informational world; without a pass—keep out. Blocking or ignoring anonymous messages should become a basic skill for everyone, just like washing hands before a meal.
It’s unlikely to fully protect oneself from the swarm of poisonous insects generated by language models, but it is quite feasible to reduce the harm to an acceptable minimum. It’s hard to stay completely dry in a downpour, but that’s no reason to leave the house without an umbrella.
Illustration: generated by AI/Daniel Wiczew, Linkedin
