AI Won't Save Us From Fake News: YouTube's Fact Checking Tool Thinks Notre Dame Fire Is About 9/11

AI Won't Save Us From Fake News: YouTube's Fact Checking Tool Thinks Notre Dame Fire Is About 9/11

5 years ago
Anonymous $9jpehmcKty

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190415/16581142018/ai-wont-save-us-fake-news-youtubes-fact-checking-tool-thinks-notre-dame-fire-is-about-9-11.shtml

In the ongoing moral panic about social media algorithms and what they recommend, there are various suggestions on how the companies might "improve" what they do -- and many of them suggest relying on newer, better, algorithms. It's the "nerd harder" approach. Mark Zuckerberg himself, last year, repeatedly suggested that investing heavily in AI would be a big part of dealing with content moderation questions. This has always been a bit silly, but as if to demonstrate how silly this notion is, yesterday, during the tragic fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, YouTube's fancy new "fact checking AI" seemed to think multiple videos of the fire were actually referring to the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the US and linked to a page on Encycolpedia Britannica with more info about the attacks:

These links didn't last for very long, but at the very least, it should be a reminder that expecting AI to magically fact check breaking news in real-time is (at the very least) a long, long way off, and at worst, a nearly impossible request.