AI-Human Partnerships Tackle "Fake News"

During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, inaccurate and misleading articles burned through social networks. Since then, tech companies--from behemoths like Facebook and Google to scrappy startups--have built tools to fight misinformation (including what many call "fake news," though that term is highly politicized). Most companies have turned to artificial intelligence (AI) in hopes that fast and automated computer systems can deal with a problem that's seemingly as big as the Internet. "They're all using AI because they need to scale," says Claire Wardle, who leads the misinformation-fighting project First Draft, based in Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. AI can speed up time-consuming steps, she says, such as going through the vast amount of content published online every day and flagging material that might be false.