Could AI Be the Future of Fake News and Product Reviews?

When Hillary Clinton's new book What Happened debuted on Amazon's Web site last month, the response was incredible. So incredible, that of the 1,600 reviews posted on the book's Amazon page in just a few hours, the company soon deleted 900 it suspected of being bogus: written by people who said they loved or hated the book, but had neither purchased nor likely even read it. Fake product reviews--prompted by payola or more nefarious motives--are nothing new, but they are set to become a bigger problem as tricksters find new ways of automating online misinformation campaigns launched to sway public opinion. Amazon has deleted nearly 1,200 reviews of What Happened since it debuted on September 12, according to ReviewMeta, a watchdog site that analyzes consumer feedback for products sold on Amazon.com. ReviewMeta gained some notoriety last year when, after evaluating seven million appraisals across Amazon, it called out the online retailer for allowing "incentivized" reviews by people paid to write five-star product endorsements.