Risks of AI disinformation in schools

Risks of AI disinformation in schools

This year sees the start of a two-year research project that will conduct applied studies in schools in Brazil. The research will look at the effects of disinformation through generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the education system. Through the exchange of experience between Brazilian and Swedish researchers, the results may be applied to Swedish schools in the future.

The research project, entitled "Impacts of generative artificial intelligence on the disinformation ecosystem: applications in educommunication in the post-digital context", aims to understand how AI affects disinformation and to develop a new approach in Educommunication to improve the use of generative AI tools and prepare school students to recognize the authenticity of the information generated and its disinformative potential. The project builds on previous experiences from education projects in East Timor, Mozambique and Brazil.

Renira Gambarato, Professor of Media and Communication Studies, and Paola Sartoretto, Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication Studies, both at the School of Education and Communication (HLK) at Jönköping University (JU), will participate in the research project from Sweden.

In the fall of 2025, Renira and Paola will go to Brazil to conduct studies and in 2026 two Brazilian researchers will come to Sweden.

- "With this exchange, we will also benefit as we will further develop the methodology to be applied in schools and benefit both teachers and students. The results will also be shared, which may open up for a similar study to be conducted in Swedish schools," says Renira Gambarato.

The increasing use of generative AI makes disinformation more complex and difficult to control.

- "It's about preparing students to better understand how AI works and to recognize when it is being used to create disinformation," says Renira.

Generative AI can create original content independently by learning from large datasets without supervision. This content can sometimes be inaccurate or misleading and can lead to problems such as fraud, discrimination and rights violations. As generative AI becomes more widely used in society, it can make disinformation more complex and difficult to manage. The algorithms that create this content are often difficult to understand, making it hard to assess the origin and accuracy of the information. This affects how we perceive and use information in our everyday lives.

- Media literacy, i.e. being able to understand, interpret and use information, is becoming more complex and important in our contemporary media environment and schools have a key role in creating the conditions for everyone to be able to read the contemporary world in its complexity," says Paola Sartoretto.

The research project has five specific objectives:

• To investigate emergent approaches of disinformation arising from the social use of generative AI technologies.
• Assess the impact of the social use of generative AI technologies on the disinformation ecosystem.
• Develop an original methodology in educommunication aimed at improving the social use of generative AI tools, both in terms of social recognition of the integrity of the generated information and its disinformation potential.
• Discussing the original methodology with Brazilian researchers based at the Swedish university, experts in educommunication, with experience in generative AI, post-digital state, media and communication, with the aim of improving it, applying it and making it publicly available on the research website.
• Apply the original methodology to be developed in state schools in Brazil.

For more information, contact renira.gambarato@ju.se or paola.sartoretto@ju.se