“The global information environment is under significant pressure from the development of new technologies and shifting public policies. How do experts around the world perceive the varied features of, and threats to, the information environment in their countries of expertise? In June 2024, the International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE) surveyed 412 researchers from 66 countries about the global information environment. This Summary for Policymakers summarizes Trends in the Global Information Environment: 2024 Expert Survey Results, to be published as SR2024.2 in October 2024.” Expert Survey on the Global Information Environment 2024 Searching for Solutions. The 2024 survey confirms the consensus, first expressed in the 2023 survey (SR2023.3), that availability of accurate information and diversity of voices are themost important features of a healthy information environment:
• This year, two thirds (63%) of the respondents expect the information environment to worsen in the future, compared to just over half (54%) in the prior survey.
• Experts are most worried about the threats to the information environment posed by the owners of social media platforms, governments, and politicians.
Researchers perceive generative AI as a source of both concern and hope:
• Nearly two thirds (63%) believe that AI-generated videos, voices, images, and text have negatively impacted the global information environment, while more than half (53%) believe that these technologies will have a negative impact in the next five years.
• Most experts (63%) are concerned that AI perpetuates biases, amplifies harassment, and magnifies the problem of misinformation.
• A majority (67%) are hopeful that generative AI will improve content detection, facilitate journalism, improve cross-cultural and cross-modal communication, and increase the persuasiveness of reliable information. Experts report significant barriers to the study of the information environment:
• Three quarters of the researchers cite data access as a major challenge.
• Experts are calling for more multi-cultural, multi-platform, and multi-disciplinary research…”