MANILA – While President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. admitted that artificial intelligence (AI) is “disconcerting,” he said it is deemed helpful in the modern times.
He said the government must learn how to deal with it, especially as the administration launched its media information literacy campaign aimed at guiding the youth and the entire nation in the information they consume online.
“With the advent of AI, we can see that the tools that are available are becoming more and more powerful and we’re all very grateful when there are machines do a little bit of thinking for us but it’s also rather disconcerting when we are confronted by pure AI, hindi na tao yung kausap mo (you’re no longer talking to a human),” Marcos said in his speech at the launching of media information literacy campaign of the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) on Monday, Aug. 14.
“That’s something that we have to learn how to deal with, and that is why what we are doing here today— starting this campaign— is very very important,” he adeed.
The President mentioned this while he was emphasizing the need to ensure that the citizenry, especially the youth, are able to discern between truth, speculation, propaganda, and outright lies.
He further said that this is an “urgent” job that they must start now, stressing that “we need everyone to be involved.”
“It is immediate, it is urgent and although I think if we put our minds to it, there is a way to allow our people to be able to discern from truth and everything else,” the Chief Executive said.
Marcos also pointed out the need to recognize that there is good information and bad information, saying “it is up to us to make sure that we cannot stop it.”
“I don’t think that there’s ever been any country no matter how much they wanted to do try and stop the internet or to try and block or try and cancel websites, they do for a little while, pero lilitaw din ‘yan (it will eventually reappear). We always somehow find a way in,” Marcos said.
“So we have to, we have to find a way to make sure that whatever the inputs are people are getting, they have the capability, they have the ability to be able to discern between truth, speculation, propaganda, and outright lies,” he added. (MB)
