The Encyclopedia Project, or How To Know in the Age of AI.

Extracts from a piece by sociologist of science and technology, Janet Vertesi, via Public Books:

… And therein lies the problem with the internet, a problem that we have thus far mischaracterized as one of “ethics,” “misinformation,” or “search,” all efforts to treat the symptoms and not the disease. The problem of the internet is the problem of epistemology.

… That’s why teaching the next generation of citizens and software engineers to tell right from wrong is not merely an ethical project. It is also an epistemological project, and it has been missing from Silicon Valley since day one. This absence has twisted our search engines and our database architectures, our communities and our politics. Without an information topology, we are adrift in content, attempting in vain to navigate a cascade of absurdities without a compass. Entranced by our devices, we swipe past one playful shadow after another with no means to ascend beyond, seeing kangaroos in the duck-rabbit, believing the impossible and the unjustifiable. Beset by misinformation and mechanical hallucinations, we—and our machines alike—are increasingly unable to tell the difference.

… When we build new technologies, ethical questions—like “what is good?”—are always essential. Yet these are not the only questions at stake, nor do they point to the sole cause of today’s online turmoil. Arguably, our contemporary tech landscape urgently demands that we return afresh to another of the oldest questions of all: “What is really real?”