The other possibility is that the programmers are modifying the weights on data so that information that comes from .gov sites is weighted higher making EPA, DOE, and CDC lies percolate to the top.
Yes, both can be and probably are true. AI is supposed to be a computer system that thinks. Some say its a computer system that is indistinguishable from a human. Right now it is indistinguishable from a poorly written high school research paper that just copies its data from the internet.
Whether its used to drive cars or create how-to books, AI tries to mimic humans but never very well. The truth is that humans don’t always do things well either. There are good writers and bad writers. There are good drivers and bad drivers. We don’t need AI to create another bad driver.
AI programming is highly dependent on primary directives. And priorities. So, a baby has the primary directive to breath. A baby has the priority of its mother over its father. Programmers override data to prioritize certain things. The programmers hand is always seen in the AI results. An AI needs to distinguish good data from bad data. It has to prioritize better data. And it needs to understand that data may have limitations. Sometimes you get low quality data. A baseball score that is minus two is obvious to every American to be wrong. But an AI program needs to have that programmed. Or at least it needs to have some understanding of baseball. And it needs to have an understanding that data is limited in its quality and scope. A stock price may be correct but two hours old.
AI programmers are not close to AI being better than humanity. AI can play chess better than the best human. But it took a lot of specific programming to do that. Humans, even Magnus Carlson do a lot more in a day than play chess. So the AI took a specific skill of the best chess player and it perfected it. However it can’t do any of the billions of mudain things Magnus does every day. And even if you create the perfect Magnus, you are not competing with humanity. Every women knows that their intelligence is dependent on the hive mind. Your wife hears something that does not sound right, so she talks to everyone she respects and figures out what to do. An AI is not close to a single human mind let alone a have mind. It can’t handle an imperfect ever changing world. Its just a tool. And the term AI is just a marketing ploy. Computers are getting better. They are more useful. But they are still very much just computers.