Source : Perth Now news
Artificial intelligence (AI) is proving to be a double-edged sword, which left unchecked “scales disinformation, blurs fact from fabrication, and takes advantage of the way we think’, News Corp Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller warned.
“An environment where, without proper guardrails, verified research and journalism are replaced by algorithmically generated simulations, superficial summaries, and hallucinations,” Mr Miller said during a speech at the Higher Education FEST 26 at Sydney’s Macquarie University on Tuesday.
“A world where ‘the truth’ is getting harder to decipher”.
“Truth is not a nice-to-have. It’s the foundation everything else stands on. Our democracy, our economy, our ability to simply believe what’s in front of us,” he said.
“And AI, unchecked, is eroding it faster than anything we’ve faced before – scraping our work, blurring fact from fabrication, and letting the confident sound true whether it is or not,” Mr Miller said at the event which brings together leaders in higher education, communications, marketing, recruitment and AI implementation.
“Respect for the truth is the bedrock of our legal system. A witness steps into a courtroom and swears to tell it,” he said.
Mr Miller’s speech came as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was among 22 signatories overnight calling for international safeguards on AI amid warnings from industry leaders and scientists about its rapid growth.
Mr Miller said for centuries mastheads served as “verified proof points, where politics, law, court rulings and business dealings are investigated, challenged, debated, before earning their place in the historical record”.
“Equally, universities have played a vital role, establishing themselves as trusted reference points through peer-reviewed research and scientific breakthroughs,” he said.
“But unvetted, AI systems lack respect for these very foundations. Left unchecked, AI can dilute and distort facts at a rate the truth has never had to withstand.
Truth isn’t just something to defend – “it’s our greatest asset for navigating what comes next”, Mr Miller said.
“So the choice in front of us is simple. Not to be compromised, but to defend the truth, and the institutions built to protect it.”
Mr Miller said tech companies routinely use algorithms to manipulate what we see on their platforms.
“Platforms realised that the most profitable way to capture attention was not by delivering neutral facts, but by feeding users algorithmic loops designed to provoke reaction,” Mr Miller said.
“The casualty of this shift was truth itself.
“As algorithms began rewarding engagement over accuracy, objective facts were demoted in favour of content that sparked emotion.
“Truth was no longer defined by what was verified or proven, but by what was shared, liked, and amplified,” he said.
“Truth had to compete for a click like everything else and increasingly, it lost. This wasn’t an accident. It was a business model.”
Mr Miller said this set the stage for the “explosion of the large language models we’re now living through”.
He said the 2026 Telsyte Australian Artificial Intelligence Study found 14.3 million Australians engage with AI at least every month – 5.2 million, every single day.
Despite being more digitally connected, Mr Miller said we are also increasingly misinformed.
“And when citizens are misinformed, they make the wrong choices and the wrong decisions,” he said.
“While quality journalism builds understanding by citing sources, weighing evidence, and showing its workings, AI does the opposite.
“It is engineered to prioritise fluency over facts, crawling vast ecosystems of information, stripping away nuance and complexity, and repackaging it all into a single, slick, confident paragraph,” he said.
“No sourcing. No doubt. Nothing left for you to check.
“That confidence is the trap. AI cannot tell the difference between a fact it has verified and a fact it has invented, but it delivers both in exactly the same confident tone.”
Mr Miller warned when the truth is diluted, it is not done so equally.
“Some of us pay a far steeper price than others, for not knowing what’s real,” he said.
“AI-powered voice cloning, urgency scams and targeted phishing are draining the hard-earned life savings of our retirees, algorithms trained to find exactly who is most likely to believe them, at exactly the moment they’re least equipped to question it.”
Our children are also finding themselves at the mercy of AI.
“Too many are turning to unverified, untrained AI chat bots for the guidance which a trusted adult should be giving them,” Mr Miller said.
“The NSW Office for Youth found nearly a third of young people already do this, making important life decisions on misinformation.”
And businesses are also falling victim.
“AI is handing criminals a toolkit of fake ids, cyber attacks and deep fake frauds to bleed more than $2bn a year from unsuspecting Australians,” Mr Miller said.
He said the original work of journalists – “the very foundation of truth” – was also being stolen by tech companies training AI models.
“AI scrapers mine research papers, media sites, proprietary databases, and original creative work in seconds, without consent, without recognition, and without paying a cent,” Mr Miller said.
“If an author or institution chooses to share their work for free, that is their absolute right.
“But taking it without permission, conditions, or compensation is against our laws.
“You must have the right to copy someone’s work – that’s why it’s called copyright.
“The Government must stay firm on this,” he said.
Mr Miller said Australia has already shown international leadership in establishing rules for digital platforms including the world-first under-16s social media ban and the News Media Bargaining Incentive legislation.
“These are all positive steps, but policymakers must stay focused on long-term protections for original content and human research,” Mr Miller said.
“Just as mining companies must pay taxes, obey environmental laws, and rehabilitate the land they extract from, Big Tech must maintain a social licence to operate in Australia.
“They must respect copyright, follow Australian law, and contribute positively to the society from which they draw value,” he said.
