To detect fake news, this AI first learned to write it – TechCrunch

One of the biggest problems in media today is so-called "fake news," which is so highly pernicious in part because it superficially resembles the real thing. AI tools promise to help identify it, but in order for it to do so, researchers have found that the best way is for that AI to learn to create fake news itself -- a double-edged sword, though perhaps not as dangerous as it sounds. Grover is a new system created by the University of Washington and Allen Institute for AI (AI2) computer scientists that is extremely adept at writing convincing fake news on myriad topics and as many styles -- and as a direct consequence is also no slouch at spotting it. The paper describing the model is available here. The idea of a fake news generator isn't new -- in fact, OpenAI made a splash recently by announcing that its own text-generating AI was too dangerous to release publicly. But Grover's creators believe we'll only get better at fighting generated fake news by putting the tools to create it out there to be studied.