BOISE, Idaho — Can you spot what’s real online?
As AI-generated content floods our feeds, today’s college students are sharpening their fact-checking skills. I’m your neighborhood reporter, Jessica Davis, and for News Literacy Week, we’re seeing how the next generation is learning to fight misinformation.
"Everything we do in media is not just touched by, but deeply influenced by generative AI, and if we’re not encouraging our students to use it, then they use it incorrectly,” says Nathan Snyder, who’s the director of University Television and a lecturer in the media department at Boise State.
He says he uses AI imagery during instruction, like creating a prompt to generate an image that he probably won’t be able to find anywhere else.
He says, “For educational purposes, if we need someone standing in the middle of the Sahara Desert, we don’t have to build a mock of the Sahara Desert; we can just prompt it and have the image for teaching purposes.”
AI-driven media is progressing every day; it’s important to know what’s real or what’s fake, especially on social media, where most young people consume their daily news.
"Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, that kind of stuff,” says Alton Dills.
And thousands of posts are made on these platforms every day.
BSU senior Alton Dills says he checks multiple sources to make sure what he’s reading is factual.
Dills says, “I investigate a bunch of different sites. For example, if it’s something political, I’ll go to both the right and the left and see what they’re saying about it, or if they’re saying anything at all.”
AI can manipulate images and videos, but if used properly, it’s a resourceful tool. Nathan Snyder says he uses AI for research, but the most important thing to remember is verifying sources.
Snyder says, “I ask it to cite its sources; that’s not enough, though. I need to go in and verify and check each one of those sources and make sure they are real. Then, when I do, I can use that material, and I feel safe about presenting that information as authentic information that someone could base an important decision on.”
