via University of Waterloo
A new artificial intelligence (AI) tool could help social media networks and news organizations weed out false stories.
The tool, developed by researchers at the University of Waterloo, uses deep-learning AI algorithms to determine if claims made in posts or stories are supported by other posts and stories on the same subject.
“If they are, great, it’s probably a real story,” said Alexander Wong, a professor of systems design engineering at Waterloo. “But if most of the other material isn’t supportive, it’s a strong indication you’re dealing with fake news.”
Researchers were motivated to develop the tool by the proliferation of online posts and news stories that are fabricated to deceive or mislead readers, typically for political or economic gain.
Their system advances ongoing efforts to develop fully automated technology capable of detecting fake news by achieving 90 per cent accuracy in a key area of research known as stance detection.
Given a claim in one post or story and other posts and stories on the same subject that have been collected for comparison, the system can correctly determine if they support it or not nine out of 10 times.
That is a new benchmark for accuracy by researchers using a large dataset created for a 2017 scientific competition called the Fake News Challenge.
While scientists around the world continue to work towards a fully automated system, the Waterloo technology could be used as a screening tool by human fact-checkers at social media and news organizations.
“It augments their capabilities and flags information that doesn’t look quite right for verification,” said Wong, a founding member of the Waterloo Artificial Intelligence Institute. “It isn’t designed to replace people, but to help them fact-check faster and more reliably.”
AI algorithms at the heart of the system were shown tens of thousands of claims paired with stories that either supported or didn’t support them. Over time, the system learned to determine support or non-support itself when shown new claim-story pairs.
“We need to empower journalists to uncover truth and keep us informed,” said Chris Dulhanty, a graduate student who led the project. “This represents one effort in a larger body of work to mitigate the spread of disinformation.”
Learn more: New tool uses AI to flag fake news for media fact-checkers
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Detecting false stories
- Best free web security scanners of 2022
Backed by one of the best free web security scanners, you can combat all sorts of web-based security threats without doing any blows to your budget. So, if you’re thinking about adding a layer of ...
- India: Blood test that can detect breast cancer available
As per reports, the blood test can help in detecting breast cancer at an early stage for those ... which means there is a less than 1 per cent chance of false-positive reports, with over 88 per cent ...
- Detecting Anxiety in Long-Term Care Residents: A Systematic Review
The reported outcomes of diagnostic accuracy extracted for each cited anxiety detection tool included: true positives, true negatives, false positives ... Maintaining a high sensitivity, or detecting ...
- Is that a lie? New scientific method for detecting the truth
The research appears in International Journal of Psychology and Behaviour Analysis, titled “The Effects of a Secondary Task on True and False Opinion Statement.” Dr. Tim Sandle is Digital ...
- 'They don't lie' Dogs as accurate as PCR test for detecting Covid at mass screening
RESEARCHERS have made a major breakthrough after discovering dogs could be just as effective at mass screening for COVID-19 as public testing.
Go deeper with Google Headlines on:
Detecting false stories
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Detecting fake news
- PerimeterX Fills Gap in Web App Fraud Protection Market by Detecting and Preventing Account Takeover and Fake Account Creation
PerimeterX, the leading provider of solutions that detect and stop the abuse of identity and account information on the web, has announced the … Continue Reading → ...
- Bilawal urges UN to establish task force for curbing fake news
Foreign minister calls upon world community to enhance capacity of governments to detect and expose disinformation ...
- Big Tech falls in line with Euro demands to fight bots, deepfakes, disinformation
Meta, Twitter, Google, Microsoft and other tech companies and publishers have agreed to fight disinformation online in accordance with the European Commission's latest Code of Practice rules, which ...
- AI’s role in the future of cybersecurity
From automatically detecting network irregularities ... easily accessible open-source AI technology to create fake photos, videos and speech as part of phishing (opens in new tab) campaigns ...
- HCM City police busts fake medicine ring
The police in HCM City have cracked down on a counterfeit pharmaceutical products production and trading ring. The police have detained Pham Ngoc Bich, director of the Amtex Pharma Pharmaceutical ...