Artificial Intelligence, a “highway” of disinformation

▲ Misinformation has always existed, but AI has caused it to spread at hyperspeed . Photo Image created with Microsoft AI

Europa Press

La Jornada Newspaper, Thursday, July 3, 2025, p. 6

Madrid. Communicators, journalists, and science communicators have affirmed that social media and Artificial Intelligence act as a highway to accelerate the spread of misinformation, both in the health field and in other areas, which has turned it into a new power and a new normal.

The spread of misinformation has always existed, but now we have highways that allow for the hyper-speed spread of that misinformation , said journalist and disinformation expert Marc Amorós during a conference organized by Pfizer on the relationship between this phenomenon and the science and healthcare sectors.

It's worth noting that 20 percent of the Spanish population has admitted to receiving false information about science and health, primarily through social media, according to a study by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (Fecyt).

We are living in a golden age of misinformation, where manipulated content prioritizes emotional impact and hinders the building of consensus necessary to confront major global challenges , he emphasized. He then listed a series of false headlines such as "Cancerous tumors are egg sacs full of parasites that are cured with ivermectin , " "Cabbage reduces mortality from breast cancer," or "Injecting ozone into the anus or vagina cures cancer, AIDS, and Alzheimer's ," among others that went viral on social media.

All of this is not so much intended to make people believe their lies , but rather to stop them from believing in the truth, something that disinformation spreaders are already achieving, with only 31 percent of Spaniards trusting information from the media, according to an Ipsos study.

Fake news in history

Fake news doesn't happen by chance or coincidence. It's not just jokes or unimportant anecdotes. It has an intention, it serves a purpose, it's ultimately an industry , Amorós added.

For his part, the popularizer and presenter of the program El punto sobre la Historia, David Botello, agreed that disinformation was not born on social networks, nor in online media, nor with the printing press, but that the narrative of manipulation has always existed, a phenomenon from which science has not been exempt .

Public manipulation has existed throughout history, he says, and gives as examples Ramses II and the falsification of his victory at the Battle of Kadesh (1274 BC), the propaganda in favor of King Ferdinand VII during the Spanish War of Independence, the first anti-vaccine movements that emerged when Louis Pasteur invented them, the caricatures of Charles Darwin for his theory of evolution or the Nazi propaganda machine headed by Joseph Goebbels.

Narrative manipulation has been a key tool of power to influence society, and understanding that history helps us better address the current challenges of misinformation , he said.

Pfizer Spain's communications director, Maite Hernández, emphasized that science must be accessible, understandable, and based on verified data and facts. She stated that misinformation is a threat to both public health and scientific progress.

Attacks against disseminators

Attempting to oppose these currents can create difficulties in their transmission. Up to 51 percent of Spanish science communicators have suffered attacks on social media while carrying out their work, which has led 16 percent of them to temporarily or permanently abandon their activities.

Laura Chaparro, a journalist specializing in scientific information and editor-in-chief of the Science Media Center Spain of the Fecyt, has highlighted the work of the center as an essential bridge between the scientific community and the media and points out that among the main challenges she has identified is increasing the public's trust in both information sources and public institutions, which is related to less belief in false claims and a lesser willingness to share this misinformation, according to a study published in the journal Nature .

These findings show that the fight against disinformation must go beyond simple debunking or prevention, and also focus on strengthening institutional trust as a key strategy , he asserted.

▲ The system was developed by researchers at the University of California, Irvine. Photo: Europa Press

Europa Press

La Jornada Newspaper, Thursday, July 3, 2025, p. 6

Madrid. A new study led by the University of California, Irvine, reveals that airlines can make smarter decisions to reduce aviation's impact on global warming.

The research, supported by NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF), is published in Nature and offers hopeful insights for the future of air travel and climate action.

Civil aviation contributes to global warming through several factors: carbon dioxide (CO2) from fuel, nitrogen oxides (NOx) that affect ozone and methane levels, and the formation of persistent condensation trails. Each of these factors contributes to trapping heat in the atmosphere. Historically, efforts to reduce one of these climate factors have often increased the other, leading to difficult decisions for the aviation industry.

But now, researchers led by Michael Prather, a professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine, have created a new decision-making tool that measures the total climate impact of each aviation activity, including uncertainties. Called Global Warming Activity (GWA), this metric measures the duration and intensity of each component's impact on the atmosphere, whether over hours or a century. The key lies in quantifying the uncertainties of all these elements, allowing users to formulate a decision risk curve that calculates the probability that a given trade-off will succeed in mitigating climate change.

We've always tried to integrate uncertainty quantification into our climate assessments , Prather explained in a statement. But this new decision tool uses that information to provide accurate risk quantification in climate trade-off decisions.

Condensation trails

The study concludes that if aviation decisions result in just a 3 to 5 percent reduction in contrails or NOx emissions, they can offset a 1 percent increase in CO2 emissions over a 100-year period. In other words, carefully selected strategies that slightly increase fuel consumption can reduce the long-term climate impact of flying. This approach has only been applied to damage caused by climate change and has not addressed trade-offs in terms of economic costs (such as higher fuel consumption per flight).

While previous models often struggled to compare the effects of short- and long-lived pollutants, the GWA allows for more accurate activity-based comparisons, helping the aviation industry find the least harmful options to reduce climate change.

The implications go beyond aviation. The GWA tool could also help assess the climate impact of other industries, such as shipping, agriculture, or manufacturing, where different types of emissions compete and interact, Prather concludes.