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posted by martyb on Wednesday April 17 2019, @10:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the let-me-think-about-it-a-bit dept.

Fake news has already fanned the flames of distrust towards media, politics and established institutions around the world. And while new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) might make things even worse, it can also be used to combat misinformation.

A fake story might, for example, make the claim that a very high percentage of crimes in a European country are committed by foreign immigrants. In theory that might be an easy claim to disprove because of large troves of available open data, yet journalists waste valuable time in finding that data. So Fandango’s tool links all kinds of European open data sources together, and bundles and visualises it. Journalists can use, for example, pooled together national data to address claims about crimes or apply data from the European Copernicus satellites to climate change debates.

Essentially, previous studies show that fake news stories are shared online in different ways from real news stories, says Prof. Bronstein. Fake news might have far more shares than likes on Facebook, while regular posts tend to have more likes than they have shares. By spotting patterns like these, GoodNews attaches a credibility score to a news item.

The GoodNews team hopes to monetise this service through a start-up called Fabula AI, based in London. While they hope to roll out the product at the end of the year, they envisage having customers such as large media companies like Facebook and Twitter, but also individual users.

Can artificial intelligence help end fake news?

[More Info]:
Fandango
GoodNews

Do you think that AI is a solution to the fake news problem ??


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday April 17 2019, @10:41PM (6 children)

    by jmorris (4844) on Wednesday April 17 2019, @10:41PM (#831365)

    The problem is anytime they try to roll out AI in these sort of things they almost instantly have to either disconnect it entirely or lobotomize it for wrong think. We can barely teach a machine to sorta think, we are a long way from making one capable of DoubleThink.

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  • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:01PM

    by captain normal (2205) on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:01PM (#831373)

    Yep...garbage in, garbage out. We can't depend on on a machine to straighten up our monkey brains. Especially when we are the monkeys designing, building and programming the machine. We have to sort it out on our own. There is no Deus ex machina to show up and save our ass.

    --
    When life isn't going right, go left.
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:25PM

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:25PM (#831387) Journal

    Yeah, and politicians won't like this at all if the machine starts chasing after them, linking their stock portfolios and campaign "donations" to their voting records.

    Our Great Institutions® aren't against "fake news". They only lament their loss of control.

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday April 18 2019, @04:11AM (2 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday April 18 2019, @04:11AM (#831502) Homepage Journal

    It's an idiotic goal anyway. A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday April 18 2019, @09:31AM (1 child)

      by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Thursday April 18 2019, @09:31AM (#831563) Journal

      Isn't that kind of the point? Hobble the lies before they can get out of the gate, thereby giving the truth a chance to get its boots on, do some warm up stretches, switch on its running playlist and finally get moving?

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by choose another one on Thursday April 18 2019, @08:43AM

    by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 18 2019, @08:43AM (#831553)

    Yep - as illustrated nicely by youtubes AI flagging Notre Dame fire videos as 911 fake news / conspiracy...

    https://www.wired.co.uk/article/wired-awake-160419 [wired.co.uk]