Evaluation of Social Media Sources

In this post I will be evaluating two social media sources regarding artificial intelligence.

The first source was posted on The Washington Post on July 7, 2015. The blog post, titled "The very best ideas for preventing artificial intelligence from wrecking the planet" and authored by Dominic Basulto contains five different ideas to prevent artificial intelligence from causing significant harm to mankind.

Screenshot from my computer, 9/5/2015

The author, Dominic Basulto, is far from an expert on the topic of artificial intelligence. Basulto is a blogger for The Washington Post and Big Think. Basulto also writes travel guides available on iPad and Kindle. Basulto is not directly in any events regarding artificial intelligence. Basulto's network consists of other bloggers and journalists.

The information can be verified by other sources linked by Basulto. Basulto has written several blogs on the topic of artificial intelligence. One other past post explained why Basulto believed the world's most intelligent people don't have to worry about artificial intelligence. 

Basulto has been with The Washington Post for four years, granting him more credibility than someone with significantly less time invested into their accounts. Basulto's post is somewhat reliable. While Basulto himself is no expert of artificial intelligence, some of his sources come from experts.

The second source I chose was published on nakesecurity.com on July 24, 2015. The blog post is titled "Artificial Intelligence expert likens AI dangers to nuclear weapons". The author, Mark Stockley, is an independent web consultant. Stockley belongs to no organization or institution that bestows him with special credibility. Stockley is not necessarily in position to give his own input about the matter. There doesn't appear to be anyone in Stockley's network tied to the topic of artificial intelligence.

While Stockley himself may not be an expert on artificial intelligence, his sources are. Stockley bases much of his article on the ideas of Stuart Russell, an award-winning researcher in the field of artificial intelligence. Coincidentally, Stuart Russell collaborated with a few other artificial intelligence experts in a scholarly article I reported on in my Evaluation of Scholarly Sources post.

Stockley's nakedsecurity account is six years old, granting him slightly more credibility than someone whose account is new. Stockley does not regularly post about the topic of artificial intelligtence.

Overall, Stockley's post is somewhat reliable. With no personal expertise in the subject matter, it is difficult to grant his work undeniable credibility.