Post truth: Study epidemiology of fake news
The results of the 2016 US presidential election and the UK vote to leave the European Union (Brexit) have raised questions about the influence of fake online news and social media 'echo chambers' (see also P. Williamson Nature 540, 171; 2016) The propagation of such information through social networks bears many similarities to the evolution and transmission of infectious diseases. Analysis of transmission dynamics could therefore provide insight into how misinformation spreads and competes online. For example, disease strains can evolve and compete in a host population, much like rumours, and infections and opinions are both shaped by social contacts. Modelling of competing disease strains indicates that, as contacts become more localized, the diversity of circulating strains can increase (see C. O' F. Buckee et al. Network structure can also suppress the invasion of new disease strains (see G. E. Leventhal et al. Nature Commun. 6, 6101; 2015) As more people turn to social networks as a primary news source, transmission models combined with appropriate data could help in exploring the dynamics of this new media landscape. Jim Davies's suggestion that we programme ethics into artificial intelligence meta systems as a safeguard could well backfire by compromising our abilities to judge ethical implications (Nature 538, 291; 2016) In an earlier version of the future, robot lawnmowers and kitchen appliances promised us more leisure time. We now face the spectre of mass human displacement from a consumption based economy by equipment that can do things much more efficiently than people can. The 'age of information' promised global connectivity, but this has wrought distraction to a point at which only lurid excesses can focus our undivided attention on the society to which we all belong. And as computer generated imagery colonizes our imaginations, many are barely swayed by real violence (the wanton destruction of Syrian cities comes to mind) There is even evidence that video gaming driven by computer generated imagery can alter a player's perception of acceleration and gravity (see, for example, 2014) compromising their decision making skills in a world where real physics is the law. Such trends don't bode well for 'ethical' computers. Of some 3,500 species of mosquito, those of the genus Anopheles are widely considered to be the most dangerous because they transmit malaria. Malaria is decreasing, however, and other mosquito borne diseases, such as dengue, chikungunya, Zika and yellow fever, are increasing Vulture 'restaurants' across southern Europe are serving up carcasses
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