A symbol of artificial intelligence. Photo: public domain.

Joe Friday, the protagonist in the 1960’s television series Dragnet, delighted a generation of baby-boomers with his good cop demeanor and his famous tagline: “just the facts, ma’am.”

Underscoring just how deeply the authority of facts has been degraded since Dragnet first aired, when asked for just the facts about Detective Joe Friday, DeepAI eviscerated him for his misogynistic and coercive assault on subjective reality.

The character, said DeepAI, “is not interested in listening to the women’s [sic] perspectives or emotions.” When pressed to stand by this statement, DeepAI retreated to a more nuanced position. But for those seeking AI’s instant socio-cultural output, there is far less interest in generating verifiable facts than in increasing the already breakneck pace of today’s online discovery and share cycle.

The coded doctrine of social media’s phobic underbelly is shaping the summary judgements rendered by AI chatbots so decisively that in the fight against hate-driven incitement, facts may never regain their authority as arbiters of truth.

It isn’t that chatbots want to undermine facts, but the more their conclusions are affirmed by users, the more lyrical they become. Nor is it that online hate posters are hooked on AI chatbots simply because they provide confirmation of their already existing ideologies. The hate posters keep coming back for more because what happens during their interaction with the chatbots also makes them feel really good.

The appeal of cooking up facts to persecute innocents is nothing new. In 14th century Germany, Jews were mass murdered for causing the Black Death by poisoning wells. From the 15th to the 18th centuries, witches were burned in the UK for casting deadly spells on livestock. Between 2014 and 2017, Yazidi Kurds were raped and tortured for being devil worshippers. But what distinguishes today’s hate-led battle cry is not just the scale and speed with which conspicuous facts are overturned by dubious and often inhumane propositions, but the reward of the exercise itself.

The human brain was never hardwired to prioritize facts. Under duress, our primal instinct is to cling to opinions and beliefs that we already have, even if they are wrong. This is illustrated by the oft-heard declaration, “he always has to be right,” which harks back to a primordial behavior that is rewarded, as neuroscientists explain, with a pleasure that is similar to that which we get from things like eating or sex. That pleasure can be so compelling that it trumps everything, including common sense and decency.

Hormonally speaking, what this means is that winning an argument — that is, being right — has a satisfying effect not dissimilar to a good carnal romp.

Disciplined, trained, and conscious minds overcome that impulse by engaging in activities like dialogue and debate. But for example, when a Jewish advocate presents relatively indisputable facts to challenge an antisemitic assault on social media, the science tells us that, by nature, the opposing brain will not be inclined to discuss conclusions based on those facts. That is because the battle is not with a self-controlled, rule-based interlocutor. It is with a tidal wave of chemicals that impel the host’s brain to raise its voice, strike back, or simply turn a deaf ear.

A study by University of Texas researcher Ben Wasike demonstrated how this plays out online by examining the effectiveness of social media fact-checking against misinformation sharing. Professor Wasike showed that fact-checked posts, once they have been proven to be misleading, spread on social media at the same rate, whether before or after they were fact checked. It follows from his findings that many of those who check the facts are doing so only to confirm what they already believe.

As digital discourse drives toward a monopoly on the distribution of information, the currency of facts has declined in value to such an extent that no amount of factual ordnance is going to do much to change minds. If anything can alter this trajectory, it is a relentless initiative to drown rancorous online audiences in hormones of love and self-affirming visions of rose-colored rightness until liking targeted groups becomes as much fun as hating them. In the meantime, the champions of hate online will continue to harden their advantage on the digital high ground.

Ron Katz specializes in rhetoric and propaganda. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. He is President of the Tel Aviv Institute and can be reached at ronkatz@tlvi.org.