Coming Up Empty: Where's the Evidence?

 

A good test case for trust comes when a claim is made and no evidence is provided.

Take for instance two statements made by Elon Musk today in the Oval Office and reported on numerous news services:

• Some officials at the now-gutted U.S. Agency for International Development had been taking “kickbacks.” Musk said “quite a few people” in that agency somehow had “managed to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position.” 
• Musk also claimed that some recipients of Social Security checks were as old as 150.

No specific examples or fraud or evidence for the claims were provided. So what do you do?

1. Do do know Musk personally? If so, you may have some important context to make up for the missing information. Does he have a history of telling you things that are factual or not? Most people don't have a relationship with Musk, so few can use "personal knowledge" to decide if the information source can be believed.
2. Can you check out the information to determine if it can be trusted or not? Lacking evidence makes this hard to do. This is an evolving news situation--there is only anecdotal information provided by one person.
3. Do you believe the information without evidence, taking it on blind faith that other people in room (e.g., Trump) goes along with it? Note that Trump doesn't exactly corroborate Musk's claim and was surprised at the results: 

   [President Trump] said he thought it was “crazy” that DOGE has been able to find so much fraud and waste in the federal government, arguing “we had no idea we were going to find this much.”  source

Couple this with another statement Musk made when asked about the truth of other claims he has made:

“Some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected. Nobody’s going to bat 1.000,” Mr. Musk said. “We all make mistakes. But we’ll act quickly to correct any mistakes.” source

Whenever you come up empty on evidence and lack a personal history with an information source, it's never a good idea uncritically to accept the information on blind faith. It's impossible to make an informed choice when evidence is lacking. 

What evidence can you find to fill those empty hands?

Addendum: On Feb. 12, 2025, the New York Times posted this fact-checking article regarding Musk's statements: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/us/elon-musk-doge-fact-check.html

How do you test trust?

February 9, 2025

How do you decide what is a truth and what is a lie?

Trust

The lead question is essentially the same as asking, "what information do you trust?" The usual answers include:

• I trust someone I know who has a proven track record of saying trustworthy things--in other words, I believed them and it turned out well.
• I trust someone or some organization I don't know personally who has a good reputation--others report trusting them and believe it turned out well.

Today there is a lot of disagreement in current politics, religion, society and culture about who to trust. People have opposite views about individuals, news sources, and authorities. The question to ask isn't "Do I trust them?" but "if I believe them, what happens?" At some point everyone has to act on the information they receive, otherwise there is no going forward.

The test for trustworthiness is "Do the results make this source one I can continue to trust?" The danger in this approach is that you may waste your time, money, or be physically harmed (e.g., walking on thin ice).

Authority

What makes someone an authority? This is nearly identical to knowing how to trust someone.

• I know the person and he or she tells me reliable things that I can verify by trying them.
• I've never had personal experience with the person (or organization) but people who I respect tell me they are a reliable authority.

It's impossible to know everyone. People we are close to are the easiest to trust (or mistrust) because we have first hand information about them. We aren't close to the majority of information sources in our world, therefore we depend on sources we think we know something about to tell us if the information from others is reliable. 

Here's where a lot of erroneous assumptions get made. 

Unless we do our own research we cannot know if something we believe to be true can be trusted. That's hard work. It's a lot easier to believe stuff we see or hear that agrees with things we already value.

So here's something to try: act on the information you want to test. Either read up on it from a variety of sources, or just trust your gut. See what results you get. But be careful, something may happen you don't expect or want. Take small steps at first--is the information something you can trust? Then share your findings with others who trust you.

In the days ahead, we'll apply this test to claims made online by individuals and organizations we don't know personally.

Fooled by AI?

Opportunities to be misled by online information appears to be on the rise, according to 1,000 American teens who participated in the following study by Common Sense Media.

Research Brief: Teens, Trust, and Technology in the Age of AI

January 29, 2025

Several highlights:

• Over a third of the teens report being misled by fake content online
• Close to 6 in 10 teens express "doubt that tech companies will prioritize their mental health and well-being over profits"
• One in five teens reports sharing information they later learned was fake
  
• Teens in the study advocate for stronger safeguards around AI technology
  

These teens' realizations are worth factoring into conversations around the content verification efforts, or lack thereof, of online platform providers. The implication is that content trust very much matters to our current 13 - 18 year olds.