--- title: "This AI Can Help Humans Spot AI-Generated Fake News" description: "A team of researchers from Harvard and MIT’s IBM Watson Lab have created an AI system that can detect if text was generated by another AI. They’re hoping to lay the groundwork for tools that could make it easier to spot examples of fake comments or even news articles online. The so-called Giant Language model […]" date: "2019-07-29" modified: "2019-07-29" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-spot-fake-news" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "ai" - "artificial intelligence" - "fake news" - "the digest" --- # This AI Can Help Humans Spot AI-Generated Fake News ![A team of researchers from Harvard and MIT's IBM Watson Lab have created an AI system that can detect if text or fake news was generated by another AI.]() *\Image: MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab/Victor Tangermann\* ## Fake News Forensics A team of researchers from Harvard and the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab have created a system they say can detect whether text was generated by another AI. They're hoping to lay the groundwork for future tools that could make it easier to spot fake comments or even news articles online. The Giant Language model Test Room is a "a tool to support humans in detecting whether a text was generated by a model," according to [a preprint]() of the research published on *arXiv* in June. You can try out the demo yourself by clicking [here](). ## Human Error The basic concept behind the tool is fairly simple: human-written text is far more unpredictable in the way it is structured. The system won't be able to "automatically detect large-scale abuse" due to its limited scale — it was designed to sniff out fake text in individual cases only. ## Fooling Humans The system isn't anywhere near perfect: by cross-referencing the text with a number of common AI text generators, it was able to improve "the human detection-rate of fake text from 54% to 72% without any prior training." The researchers also admit that future fake text generators could easily fool their system by changing "the sampling parameters per word or sentence to make it look more similar to the language it is trying to imitate." **READ MORE:** [This AI tool is smart enough to spot AI-generated articles and tweets]() \[*The Next Web*\] **More on fake news:** *[New AI Generates Horrifyingly Plausible Fake News]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()