By NOEL D. FERRER
As a person in media, it is part of our task to inform the public, elevate discourse, and most importantly expose wrongdoings and seek accountability. In today’s political climate, and information ecosystem, however, this is becoming increasingly challenging. Disinformation has become a huge problem globally, one that can result in chaos, destruction and even death. It has tremendously undermined institutions of our democracy, including the media, you in the academe, civil society and even government.

How can we fight these lies and disinformation? The truth will not set us free on its own.
We need to assert and create the space for it to thrive and spread.
The first step is to recognize the nature of the beast. Disinformation has become a corrosive tool that slowly poisons the well of truth – shared democratic values, historical facts, and scientific knowledge that keep our society together. It has polarized the world, but in the end, the main culprit is not the vlogger nor the so-called troll. The enemies are the vested economic and political interests that deliberately deploy and amplify deception using platforms and their propoganda machines (and we see those on TV, radio, music and even the movies).
As people in media, our task is to uncover, share and defend the truth; as a talent manager, we only support those with similar values of excellence, integrity and goodwill – that’s why our talents are different from those who sparkle with magic. As custodians of knowledge here in academe, you are much a defender of the truth as we are – as we all are. We have all witnessed the consequences of disinformation, which has incited violence, fueled hatred, and undermined trust in institutions.
Being here today and witnessing your sincerity in bringing about change beyond Artificial Intelligence gives us hope. And so we are pleased to know that we are allies. Your mission goes beyond studying systems (even AI), analyzing data, or doing creative production work and curating art. It involves equipping society with the skills to navigate the sea of disinformation and amplify urgent messages and principles that need to be told – on radio, TV, film, music, advertising and online.
And so today, beyond fighting disinformation and challenging AI, we want to ask you to leverage the tools of the digital age to foster harmony. We all need to be influencers so that we can outnumber influence operators who have been exploiting online platforms to suppress and harm critical pillars of our democracy.
We can start by listening to our community and involving them in meaningful conversations – to gather not only their quotes and stories but also their sentiments and feelings. (Medyo hindi ‘yan kuha nang buong buo ni AI.) True. Social media can be a toxic environment for engagement. It can be tiring, and it can ruin your day. But a common mistake that we commit is to conveniently dismiss those who fiercely disagree with us as trolls. There is a real person behind every account – whether fake or verified. Many of them can still be persuaded through contractive interaction.
In school, around dining tables, in our neighborhood, and in online chats, we can spark engagement based on the simple, old values of honesty, respect and compassion. It will allow us to engage responsibly and in good faith.
What are the implications of AI integration in the creative process?
The creative process is now joined by a machine that thinks without being aware of what it thinks or its implications. Most of all, whereas humans risk losing an old belief, their property, even their allegiances when they engage in the creative process, AI does not risk anything when it joins the creative process. What does that mean when a big “factor” in the creatives – AI – has no stake in the output? Humans learn and crystalize the worth of an endeavor when they risk things. AI learns by just having more and more data to learn from. What is the worth of something that puts out info without risk of losing itself or parts of itself or even caring that it loses parts of itself if it does?
For music, AI will enable the production of more and more music but it would also mean less and less musicians. Do we want a world or a trajectory of futures with music without musicians?
For the first time in history, as Tristan Harris said, the boss (humans) is dumber than the machine since AI practically can contain everything. What would that do to our deep seated sense of curiosity about the world? Will we rest easy knowing there is an entity that knows everything? Do we trust ourselves, based on history, that we can make the best decisions based on the best and most number of information available which AI can provide? Would our natural stupidities and their serious consequences like war, improve with artificial intelligence?
In writing, the weaving of other worlds, other lives in the writer’s head, is a fundamentally creative process that becomes a worded tapestry that scales our souls. AI churns out worlds based on mathematical or computational formulas that approximate sense-making.
It is still up to you to weave that in the soul-shaping enterprise of the humanities.
Everything considered, we think at this point AI integration in the creative process is inevitable. We cannot roll back advancements in AI in the same way that we had to adapt social media, the internet, broadcasting, etc. when these technologies were unleashed upon the public. We expect a lot of debate, ugliness, and missteps, especially affecting those in the creative profession, as we grapple with this new technology.
Nevertheless, we hope we are able to set guidelines so that creatives are protected, recognized, and compensated for their work that AI train on.
Esteemed journalist Roby Alampay opines, “We have to be very sensitive to how our people feel, whether they are threatened or excited by all things AI. If we don’t have these open and transparent conversations with them, the HR fallout will outweigh and cancel out any benefits or potentials that we see.”
That said, we think we are largely excited and open to AI and how it can drive efficiencies.
It is helping drive down costs, enhancing work-life balance, helping us produce and offer new products and services, and is freeing us up for more innovation and even ambitious imaginations.
It is impacting on certain jobs – some manual work is already obsolet -, but it is also helping us preserve other jobs and even opening up potentials for expanding other teams.
How are media workers and students affected by AI?
The tools to create whether a student or media worker, are greatly amplified! If you are imbued with the spirit to create, you will be honest with yourself and know the place of AI in your own creative process. If you are in it to use whatever the tools spin for you, then you will never get transformed by the creative process. You get to be the tool’s tool.
Students, especially young ones, have brains that are still pruning and making connections between the emotional centers and thinking parts. Having a tool to mine for answers in the gaps in information that adolescents crave for, could help them mature but if they rely on it too much, it could just help the AI mature more in terms of getting their data.
Multi-awarded broadcast journalist and Palanca literary awardee Atom Araullo said, “At the end of the day, AI is just another tool at our disposal, albeit extremely powerful and still little understood. It is neither fundamentally good nor bad, and individuals using AI must have a firm grasp of the ethics surrounding this new technology. I expect the media landscape to change rapidly in the next few years.
“In particular, I am concerned that AI may supercharge disinformation, since it will be even harder to separate fact and fiction. But along with the challenges, opportunities will surely arise which may help us address existing problems today. So I don’t think there is reason to despair – at least not yet.”
(This is part of the Jose Avellana lecture that was delivered by the author at the Leong Hall of the Ateneo de Manila University yesterday, March 6.)