A global surge of misinformation – amplified by social media, AI fakery and organised disinformation campaigns – is corroding the foundations of democratic decision-making and public trust.

Arguably, the most dangerous pandemic ever to strike humanity is the plague of deliberate misinformation, mass delusion and unfounded belief which is engulfing 21st Century society.

Whether generated by governments, the fossil fuels lobby, corrupt media, corporate interests, the anti-science lobby, religious fanatics, extremist politicians and ideologues, well-meaning simpletons or nutcase conspiracists, a global deluge of utter nonsense is rapidly swallowing the human species.

The flood is aided and abetted by social media and augmented by the proliferation of AI fakery that is now drowning the Internet.

In the short run it may seem irritating, even occasionally entertaining. In the long run, it lays the ground for the failure of governments, the disintegration of business, the collapse of social order and – eventually – of civilisation itself, due to paralysis brought on by reliance on false data.

“The AI revolution has the potential to accelerate the existing chaos and dysfunction in the world’s information ecosystem, supercharging mis- and disinformation campaigns and undermining the fact-based public discussions required to address urgent major threats like nuclear war, pandemics, and climate change,” warn the authors of the Doomsday Clock.

The uses of AI to generate falsehood “have revolutionised the landscape of false information, allowing for the automation of misinformation production and its widespread dissemination at an unprecedented scale,” cyber experts say. This has swelled the flood of garbage into a veritable tsunami.

“Misinformation has reached crisis proportions,” Jevin West and Carl Bergstrom of Washington University, declared. “It poses a risk to international peace, interferes with democratic decision-making, endangers the well-being of the planet and threatens public health. Without reliable and accurate sources of information, we cannot hope to halt climate change, make reasoned democratic decisions, or control a global pandemic.”

While lying is ancient, disinformation in the modern age reached a fresh crescendos with the fossil fuel campaign to discredit climate science, and the mass attack on public health by the ignorant during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The initial proliferation of falsehoods led the World Health Organization to dub it “an infodemic” which “causes confusion and risk-taking that can harm health. It also leads to mistrust in health authorities and undermines the public health response”.

Disinformation – the deliberate spreading of wrong information – is a new form of murder: world statistics show that Covid death rates were far higher among the unvaccinated, many of whom were influenced by lies spread by others. A CDC study found that for 16,500 deaths among unvaccinated people, there were 5,400 among people who had had one vaccine shot, and only 285 deaths among people who had had booster shots. Thus, lies about vaccines helped kill three times as many unvaccinated people, compared to those who had been immunised once, and 55 times as many as those who had two or more shots.

Some researchers regard the flood of nonsense as a new form of warfare, declared by one part of humanity against the whole – including themselves – using the global Internet. “Cyber-enabled information warfare has also become an existential threat in its own right,” Herbert Lin writes, arguing it is increasing the potential deadliness of both climate and nuclear war.

Furthermore, Lin points out, “the pillars of modern democratic self-government – logic, truth, and reality – are shattered, and anti-Enlightenment values undermine civilisation as we know it around the world.”

It is sobering to reflect that modern information technology is hurling global society back into a mediaeval Dark Age of superstition, prejudice and false belief.

Dr Steven Novella, editor of Science-Based Medicine, adds: “It’s also clear that social media has given psychopaths and con artists the keys to the kingdom. It now pays, big, with little upfront investment, to spend time and energy crafting and spreading misinformation online.”

Production of misinformation attained global industrial scale, with the fossil fuels industry funding a worldwide campaign costing over $1 billion (since 2015) to mislead the public and governments over the dangers of climate change and the role of fossil fuels in it.

“Anti-science has emerged as a dominant and highly lethal force, and one that threatens global security, as much as do terrorism and nuclear proliferation,” warned Dr Peter Hotez in a _Scientific American_ article.

The complicity of the media – world as well as national and local, traditional as well as social media – in disseminating false information under the pretence of ‘balanced reporting’ – is a central part of the modern phenomenon.

Specialist data firms now manipulate entire populations by crafting messages specifically designed to appeal to the most gullible segments. The use of AI is proliferating and expanding this trend, with the use of deceptive avatars and video fakes that purport to be real people or events.

The consequences of the ‘Age of Lies’ are profound:

- Governments can no longer make good decisions because they do not know whom to trust, or what data they can rely on.

- Voters can no longer tell which politicians are telling the truth and which are lying, as misinformation is now used extensively in politics to win or hold power.

- Business is paralysed by fake information about markets, money, investment choices and consumer preferences.

- Public healthcare collapses under a rockslide of ignorance and malice.

- False beliefs, cults, fundamentalism and other exploitative movements proliferate.

- Knowledge-based professions are besieged by nonsense spreaders.

- Science is undermined by fakery, distorted by money and loses public respect.

Humans have been lying to one another for millennia. The critical change is that humanity now faces ten catastrophic risks – none of which can be solved without a factual understanding of their causes. Unchecked, these threats will destroy our civilisation – and potentially our species.

The Age of Lies disables the very quality on which humans most rely for our survival. The ability to know, learn, understand, think – and act rationally.