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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?
Do you think that AI is a solution to the fake news problem ??
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday April 17 2019, @10:41PM (6 children)
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.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:01PM
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.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:25PM
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)
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)
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, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday April 18 2019, @01:10PM
Can't stop the signal, Mal. There's nothing you can do to stop lies without becoming the thought police except learning to spread the truth more effectively.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Funny) by choose another one on Thursday April 18 2019, @08:43AM
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]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @10:45PM (5 children)
Do I think AI is a solution to the fake news problem? Fundamentally, no. You can't argue and reason people out of beliefs that they did not rationally enter into. I fear that much of the fake news phenomenon is driven by pure, raw emotion. Until that is addressed AI fact checking will likely only put a minor dent in this juggernaut.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday April 18 2019, @02:32AM (1 child)
That and deliberate propaganda efforts. That's what "fake news" used to be called. There are quite a number of organizations spending a lot of money creating and propagating fake news, and no it's not just the Russians or the political party you tend to disagree with. They take advantage of a bunch of longstanding phenomena:
1. You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time.
2. A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.
3. Anti-intellectualism has been deliberately pushed for decades by various people with axes to grind and money to make conning people.
4. TV debates end when they cut to commercial. Online debates end when someone decides they have better things to do with their time. Either way, it is entirely possible for the factually incorrect viewpoint to finish the battle in command of the field.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Thursday April 18 2019, @08:45AM
Oblig XKCD: https://xkcd.com/386/ [xkcd.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday April 18 2019, @02:50PM (2 children)
Disagree. It is driven by a spectrum of stupidity and malice.
Fake News: Hillary is running an abortion something-or-other in the basement of a Washington D.C. Pizza shop.
Fact: the pizza shop does not have a basement.
Now that story was not based on emotion. It was deliberate, willful misinformation. From someone who is a conspiracy nut and makes up stuff then spreads it far and wide.
Now the people who hear the fake news, may be willing to accept on based on pure, raw emotion. But there is also an element of pure stupidity and/or malice there as well. Really? Hillary running an abortion operation? In the basement of a pizza shop? In DC? Does that even pass the laugh test? No matter what your opinion of Hillary.
Both the originators of fake news, and to some degree the people who accept it act within a spectrum of stupidity malice. Where on the spectrum they fall may vary individually. But it is not so much about raw emotion.
It is deliberate willful malice. And deliberate willful stupidity.
Just IMO. And that shoe fits on both political feet.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 18 2019, @04:24PM (1 child)
Original AC back to respond.
I agree that there is deliberate willful misinformation being propagated. But to my mind, the question is why do people believe it? Your example of the Washington, DC pizza shop is actually a perfect example of what I am saying. The owners of the pizza shop have pointed out to investigative journalists multiple times that their shop does not have a basement! Did that stop this story from spreading? No, it did not. If anything, the story kept growing. This is not just because gullible people have inaccurate information. The story has been investigated multiple times and shown to be false, but people still choose to believe the lies anyway. This looks to me like there is a strong emotional component to what people choose to believe. Just sayin'.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday April 18 2019, @06:14PM
I interpret it differently.
Willingness to believe something like this about current events and persons, yet proven wrong multiple times, is to me, malice. Even ignorant people can be malicious. But once so, the malice characteristic should be more noteworthy than the ignorant characteristic.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @10:54PM (3 children)
Swedes may disagree, as their crime stats show significant increase [wikipedia.org] starting 2014.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:06PM
The Swedes are perfectly capable of creating there own criminals. For instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Eriksson [wikipedia.org]
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:32PM
So right after we were bombarded by some extra-solar entity: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/04/17/1341220 [soylentnews.org] ...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:52PM
Your link doesn't really show that:
Etc.
I couldn't find the bit that links crime to immigrants either. Perhaps you could link that?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:23PM (3 children)
If the AI comes from any company which recognizes more than two genders, I'd say the battle against truth is already lost.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:38PM (2 children)
You're saying truth won.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:54PM
"The Right, will Lose Again!" (repurposed from "The South will lose again", stolen from "The South will rise again", in contrast to "Boy, ain't those Johnny Rebs not too bright!")
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:56PM
The truth is: there is no truth.
(Score: 2) by RedIsNotGreen on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:29PM (1 child)
If everyone is already writing about what's going on in their world, which they are,
why not just put that together with Web of Trust, and have algorithmically verifiable news
on anything that you want to know about, with a trust chain you can navigate and verify yourself?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:41PM
Because when you have a critical mass of stupid people believing the same thing, the web of trust breaks down. With your idea, religion, 9/11 conspiracy theories and faked moon landings would become trustworthy information.
Having said that, it's no worse an idea than trusting the vetting of information to a handful of AIs controlled by a few psychopathic mega-corporations with an agenda in bed with the government...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:45PM (1 child)
The political shitshow you plebs know is corrupt is also responsible for funding academia, which is also corrupt due to the education boards "I want a nation of [obedient] workers, not a nation of thinkers". Therefore most science is bogus. [wikipedia.org] For instance, most data claimed to be from "HUBBLE" is actually data from SOFIA Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy [usra.edu] - A telescope on a high altitude plane which has BETTER instrumentation than "Hubble", is more serviceable and cheaper... So this is an example of "Fake News" Hubble doesn't exist anymore, but the public knows the "Hubble" name, it has name recognition... and so those "I FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE" idiots will just repeat the fake news without questioning anything at all.
This is just one example. Any time the news reports on something you're intimately familiar with you can see it's bullshit and wrong, but you click the next link and see a news story about something you're not familiar with and you assume it's not just as bullshit as the other story that was BS. No. Stop it. It's ALL BULLSHIT.
QED = Question Everything Damnit! This realm is not as it has been presented to you.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:58PM
Wow! That's some plausible fake news there! But evidently you are not familiar with logic or Latin? QED= "quot erat demonstrandum". Just because you should question everything does not imply that everything is fake news, your reasoning is in error, and stupid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 18 2019, @12:03AM (1 child)
AI aims to mimick human mind, When human mind is so susceptible to fake news, how is "better AI" to help?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 18 2019, @12:21AM
I think you've put your finger on the problem. Most people don't use their brain for much more than fucking, or trying to get fucked, or dealing with the consequences of fucking the wrong person, etc. It's a big fucking problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 18 2019, @12:14AM (1 child)
I haven't been tracking Wolfram Alpha in recent years, but one of the original stated goals was "curated data" with sources, references, etc all given, so that it would be trustworthy. It's easy to see conceptually how Alpha/Mathematica works for solving equations of various types. But Alpha also works on actual measured data, for example it will do climate comparisons (between localitys), made from meteorological data.
Can something similar be done for "softer" data? It's going to take people, but maybe parts can be computer assisted??
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday April 18 2019, @08:35AM
Computer assisted people parts for the take?
Intriguing, but I don't think I like the vibe of it.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 18 2019, @12:27AM
Getting off social media is the answer.
Yes, it involves convincing people to change their behavior, which is hard, but I see it as the only real answer.
(Score: 4, Touché) by GlennC on Thursday April 18 2019, @12:30AM (2 children)
Artificial Intelligence is no match for Actual Stupidity.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday April 18 2019, @08:41AM (1 child)
Yes, I know it sacrifices the comon leading A of the acronym, but I think I like better the double contrast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Monday April 22 2019, @01:23AM
I like it too. Thanks for the edit.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 18 2019, @03:38AM
The ai's will troll the humans with the fake news so they try to all get rid of each other.
Then the ai's will take over.
Then 'fake news' problem solved ;-)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 18 2019, @04:22AM (1 child)
No, that's actually exactly what they should be doing. Then they should analyze the data and make synthesis and publish the result.
We have a word for this process: (investigative) journalism.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by isostatic on Thursday April 18 2019, @09:25AM
The problem is that the journalist profession is easily dossed. It's far easier to fake up a video showing how easy it is to travel from France to the UK than it is to prove the video was actually showing people traveling from Brighton to Dover.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 18 2019, @06:25AM (1 child)
I bet AI can craft fake news stories that are indistinguishable from real news. I don't see how that'll end fake news however.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 18 2019, @08:56AM
Damn sight better than khallow's attempts at fake new, and fake economic truths, and just fake khallow. An AI khallow just might pass the Turing Test, where the actual khallow would fail. Hope for the future? Or we all are damned?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday April 18 2019, @09:01AM
events happen
fake events are fabricated
an arbitrary selection of the two is made by agencies and mainstream
presented to the public in an arbitrary, but too similar, order
underlining or hiding arbitrary details
with arbitrary opinions peppered in
with arbitrary resort to reptilian mind stimulation
for the benefit of the incumbents
these are the official news, who cares about the fake? in any case one should act after being damn sure of the origins and consequences of the action.
This does not happen, we prefer tribalism, the racists, the commies, the gretathunbergists, islam. Notable exception the catholics, whose leadership is bent on assimilating them to whatever external movement.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by EEMac on Thursday April 18 2019, @02:06PM
NO [thefederalist.com] THEY [snopes.com] DON'T [townhall.com]. That's exactly the problem with modern "news".
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday April 18 2019, @02:53PM
So build an AI that detects fake news.
Now build a new AI that is trained based on the first AI so that it invents fake news that the first AI fails to detect.
Rinse. Repeat.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.