Why Do We Believe Wrong Information?
On trusting experts, the media, and AI
There is an old TV show called ‘Brain Games’ where they did various episodes showing what our brains are capable of and where they fail.
In one episode, they show how easily we are fooled by wrong information.
2 people dress up as news reporters. One is wearing a black suit, the other is carrying a camera. Then they walk around a mall, interviewing people after telling them wrong news.
“Sir, I am sure you heard this morning that Texas is going to separate from the US. What are your thoughts?”
The man is skeptical, but he ends up believing it.
When they later reveal that they aren’t actually news reporters, he is shocked. He can’t believe he just fell for that.
(the clip from this episode is on YouTube if you want to see it play out:
When we hear new information, we default to believing it (even if just for a split second). Then the brain runs calculations to see if it is indeed correct.
It double-checks with our memory. It may run logical conclusions. And, as you can see from this example, it figures out if the source is trustworthy.
If someone tells you there are only black cats in this world, you won’t believe it. Because you have seen white cats, brown cats, and whatever colors they may take.
But if it’s a subject you have no disproving information in your memory, this becomes much more difficult. You may have already heard that there are people in Texas who would like to secede from the US. All of a sudden, it’s not so implausible that it would happen. Add a guy in a suit, and you might just end up believing what he tells you.
This is the foundation of social engineering.
People can pretend to be someone else, and we won’t question it if it fits the situation.
Try wearing a warning vest and a small ladder over your shoulder, and you’d be surprised how many private areas or buildings you are able to access without anyone questioning you.
When it comes to information about the world around us, the brain tries to be efficient. It can’t afford to spend too much energy on every piece of information. So it takes shortcuts, makes quick conclusions, or simply stops questioning if it is likely to be true. Given the absurd amount of information we have available nowadays, we can be thankful for these mechanisms.
It prevents us from being mentally overloaded every day. But it also leads us to believe information that is not correct. And once we have formed a conclusion, it is much harder to change our minds again.
Perhaps you have already adapted to that. ‘Don’t believe anything you see on social media. Don’t trust any news, it’s all fake.’ For some, the only way to deal with information overload and the possibility of wrong information is to stop believing the media.
We live in a time where trust is more important than ever.
And this is where the brain struggles, again.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most trustworthy of them all?
When I was in my first semester at university, I had to take a course on social psychology. I was excited. Finally, I could learn more about human behavior. The hall was filled to the brim with students.
And the professor started by asking one question: “Is Günther Jauch smart?”
For those who don’t know him, he is the host of the German version of ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’
He has been running this show for over 25 years. He has witnessed more common knowledge than most people ever do.
Ask any German person, and they’d likely agree that he is a smart person.
But is he really smart?
This is where contribution errors plague our brains.
It doesn’t just need to be the host of a game show. It can be your professor or your boss. Teachers, leaders, and CEOs are always rated as smarter than, say, a nurse or your local baker.
One aspect is that these are difficult jobs that would require someone to be smart to get there in the first place.
Our brains are already making assumptions that don’t need to be true.
But what is much more important is what we perceive from how these people behave.
All a professor will talk about is their subject. All you get to see from your boss is when he talks about work (unless you are on really good terms).
It is unlikely that you will get to see them in different contexts. Whenever you meet your teachers, they are in their element. Talking about topics they know a lot about. You wouldn’t get the idea to ask your history teacher what the square root of 256 is.
And in turn, you won’t find out that he has no idea how to calculate that.
We always get a limited impression of people.
If all we ever see from a person is that they are incredibly knowledgeable, we may conclude that they are a smart person. Even if that just applies to that one topic.
An error in attribution.
With consequences. In the same way you’d believe someone who appears to be a news reporter, you are more likely to believe someone who is smart. You are more likely to believe facts from your professor than from your baker.
You might even be more likely to believe facts about the brain from me rather than your friends and family.
But everyone can make mistakes, no matter how smart or knowledgeable they are.
I was going to write the part about the Brain Games episode purely from memory. It has been a couple of years since I saw that episode. I wasn’t sure if it was about politics or something else. Or that there was more than one person doing the interview. Had I not taken the time to look it up, I would have given you a wrong statement of what happened.
But that doesn’t mean you can just stop trusting everyone. You can’t afford to verify everything yourself. You wouldn’t get anything else done in the day.
So, those whom we deem trustworthy are the people who get it right most of the time (or where we haven’t realized that they made mistakes). For the brain, this is the only plausible solution. Stay efficient while tolerating some error. As long as that statistic doesn’t change significantly, we will keep believing information from people we think are trustworthy.
What does this mean for the future?
This conversation no longer just revolves around people.
Where some might stop trusting the news, they end up relying more on artificial intelligence.
AI contains more knowledge than our brains can even comprehend. It has been trained on all the data that is in any way available. You could spend your entire life reviewing that data, and you wouldn’t even make a sliver of progress.
That’s how incredible this technology is. Or at least the narrative that has formed around it.
“If it has that much knowledge, surely it can’t be wrong.”
Is AI smart? Is AI trustworthy?
Well, if you have been paying attention so far, you might start questioning your conclusions.
AI is a machine. It calculates, it predicts. It tries to be correct most of the time.
And in this way, it isn’t much different from a human brain. It is about efficiency and probability. AI will make mistakes just like humans do.
Both humans and AI can have faulty memory. Or draw the wrong conclusions.
Instead of a news reporter, you have a software telling you what’s right.
‘Those are the facts.’
‘This is the logical conclusion.’
Even if everything you are presented with is made up, misunderstood, or based on wrong logic.
This has been my experience with AI. It started with simple errors. This prompted more investigation. And the more I double-checked the responses, the more errors I found. Over time, the statistics between right and wrong started shifting. To the point where I am not sure how much I can trust AI anymore.
Now, I am not here to tell you who to trust and who not to.
Everyone needs to make their own decisions. Some people want to know the truth. Others have different priorities in life. Verifying sources and information takes a lot of time and effort.
What I want to leave you with is a better understanding of how information works. That misinformation is and will always be around. And that you have a choice about how much of it you will allow to be present in your brain.
Where do you get your information from?
Who do you trust? And why?
How often do you double-check to see if the source is accurate?
Something for you to ponder on.
A while ago, I wrote a guide about how scientific research works. This will help you understand the difference between facts and mere assumptions and will make it easier to spot misinformation. You can read it here:
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You got this!
~ Felix