A lot of nuances of writing are lost on the internet -- things such as irony. That's why satirical material such as the writing of Andy Borowitz on the website of The New Yorker magazine has to be labeled as satire, to make sure we know. Scientists in recent years have become concerned: What about writing that isn't properly understood, such as satire mistaken for the truth, or, conversely, deliberate disinformation campaigns that are disguised as innocent satire? And so began a quest to divine some form of machine learning technology that could automatically identify satire as such and distinguish it from deliberate lies. In truth, a machine can't understand much of anything, really, and it certainly can't understand satire.

A lot of nuances of writing are lost on the internet -- things such as irony. That's why satirical material such as the writing of Andy Borowitz on the website of The New Yorker magazine has to be labeled as satire, to make sure we know. Scientists in recent years have become concerned: What about writing that isn't properly understood, such as satire mistaken for the truth, or, conversely, deliberate disinformation campaigns that are disguised as innocent satire? And so began a quest to divine some form of machine learning technology that could automatically identify satire as such and distinguish it from deliberate lies. In truth, a machine can't understand much of anything, really, and it certainly can't understand satire.