Educators have stumbled in helping students spot misinformation on the internet. Now teachers risk making the same mistakes with artificial intelligence, even as education leaders preach its promise for the classroom.
Young people are easily deceived on the internet because they judge content by how it looks and sounds. With AI, the deception can be even greater because large language models are so good at making information feel persuasive even when it fabricates content and ignores context.
Sam Wineburg, the co-founder of the Digital Inquiry Group, and Nadav Ziv, a researcher with the group, wrote an opinion essay to sketch the dangers and suggest ways that educators can help students become more savvy at evaluating AI-generated information. “Educators must show students the limits of AI and teach them the basic skills of internet search for fact-checking what they see,” the authors wrote.
Below is a downloadable primer on how to help students learn to detect AI misinformation as well as some resources to deepen that effort.
