Disinformation and Trust in digital environments: Expert decision-making, dismiss or discuss?

Abstract

Leveraging a management and organizations sciences perspective, this paper conceptualises AI, security and
information warfare practitioner decision-making as a decision to trust or distrust, mediated by intuition. To explore how
practitioners navigate trust in digital environments and benchmark to concerns a survey was conducted among 95 expert
cyber security AI and information warfare practitioners. Questions explored practitioners’ thoughts on sources of trusted
material, intuition, and approaches to managing disinformation. Scenarios were included to explore practitioners’ thoughts
on unusual incidents and help elicit future threats and solutions. Findings highlight variations in decision-making
approaches according to age, experience and domain. For trust in intuition, early-stage career and military/ defence
individuals were found less likely to rely on intuition than public and private sector peers. When faced with out-of-theordinary
events practitioners were spilt among four responses, re-checking data (37%), dismissing out-of-the-ordinary
events (30%), pausing decision-making (19%), or seeking discussing (13%). Experience levels matter, with mid-career
practitioners behaving distinctly from those at early- and late-stage careers. The contribution of this paper have direct
implications for policy-makers, including recommendations for personalised stage-appropriate training in decision-making
across age groups, and domains. Given the increasing velocity and uncertainty of the current and future threat landscape
more precise calibration of practitioner decision-making is urgently needed.