The Bittersweet Sweepstakes to Build an AI That Destroys Fake News

originally posted by: Tranceopticalinclined
a reply to: Byrd
Google has dropped the ball a bit in terms of Search Engine Matters which easily relates to the FakeNews issues of today. That webspam was supposed to get buried on page 100 or worse.

Google needs to get better at burying these type of manipulations but hasn't found a good way to combat it yet. They recently removed basically a spam algorithm ( penguin ) that would penalize or even deindex sites that were found to be using spam tactics to garner lots of links back to their site which in turns tells Google this site is trusted by many others and will rank them higher on SERPs ( Search Engine Results Page )

.....

It's a really weird wild west situation where the larger entities are making money hand over fists.

In the hunt for money on the Internet, a lot of things get biased towards the sensational. I don't know that Google is any worse than Bing, Yahoo, Ask, AOL, Dogpile, etc, etc. I used to be able to get good results on any search... now I get a whopping boatload of ads (and often those fake sites that grab your search terms and insert them in a page to lure you there) before I get to the results.

Even Google Scholar's gone downhill. They used to pull only from .edu and research sites. Nowadays you can find some pretty stupid stuff on there (defined (because I'm cranky from a long search session) as "stuff that my professors won't allow as references in a research paper.")

How about we all learn to use that intelligence we have located between our ears?

Or are we so lazy we want a machine to do our thinking for us?

There's an episode of Star Trek called the Ultimate Computer that, sort of, explores the notion of AI run amok.

originally posted by: seagull
How about we all learn to use that intelligence we have located between our ears?
.

Because that doesn't work well.

I really can't judge if (and I'm hunting for stuff here, so work with me) a discovery in subatomic physics is good or fake. I know people who could (eventually) tell me, but not before I spread a fake story.

Just look at the divergent opinions here about truth and fakery. It needs a neutral judge with impossibly broad knowledge.

a reply to: Byrd

In specifics, obviously you're correct. But speaking purely in generalities, our brains should be sufficient to decide whether something is fake or real.

If you aren't sure, go to other sources of information.

Working with you.

a reply to: seagull

Pursuant to that is this intriguing story in the Guardian about buying ads (search engine results.) In this case it was a protest for real news over fake news

...but he had to pay to get the real information on the top of the search.


("and this is why we can't have nice things" - (just being flippant))

a reply to: Byrd

1st off, thanks for the Archer reference!

2nd, that's insane what had to be done, not to mention why I don't know if search engines as we know it can operate the way they do, because there is so much they haven't designed for that is just now coming to light.

I mean, the MAIN way and I do mean MAIN way a website gets to page 1 in search results, is to have many bigger named sites link to them. This can easily be done without much actual good written content, all by using fake blog networks and buying services or software that can help literally create content that can seem human written.

You brought up a great point about not being able to determine if a subatomic article was legit or not because most of us don't have degrees in particle physics or quantum physics. So how is even using a site like snopes.com ( via facebook's recent statement ) is even going to do much. Why are we to believe snopes to be the defacto fact checker?

It's almost to the point we need to have names dropped inside the article and those same names say yes, I helped with this and yes I have this degree and have this type of experience. Kinda like a mini resume per person involved in the article. I'd rather have the facts rely on the reputation of the important subject matter experts than a website showering us with fudge, claiming to have our best interests in mind.

I mean, do you want ants? Because this is how we get ants!

a reply to: Byrd

It truly is a sad world we live in, isn't it?

Your point is made, not that I really disagreed with you, mind. But my point is, as well. I make no claims to being the smartest person around, you yourself would deny me that, but even I know not to trust only one source.

Money talks, always has and pretty much always will.

I can deal with flippant

originally posted by: Tranceopticalinclined
a reply to: Byrd

1st off, thanks for the Archer reference!

2nd, that's insane what had to be done, not to mention why I don't know if search engines as we know it can operate the way they do, because there is so much they haven't designed for that is just now coming to light.

It's a predator-prey relationship with everyone chasing resources (money) in order to stay in business.

You brought up a great point about not being able to determine if a subatomic article was legit or not because most of us don't have degrees in particle physics or quantum physics. So how is even using a site like snopes.com ( via facebook's recent statement ) is even going to do much. Why are we to believe snopes to be the defacto fact checker?

Couple of reasons:
The first is that in the new information age, a lot of things are crowdsourced and Snopes is crowdsourced fact checking. I don't know if you're aware of it, but there are two main parts to Snopes: the articles and the message board. The message board is where things are posted and checked. Their standards include a lot of image searching to find out where images came from, timestamp tracking, hunting original sources and in the case of a comment being researched, they look to find the whole context.

This is what ATS would have been - except that far too many times folks read the headline and hop on it with guns blazing (not reading the article linked). And many times they post a video as evidence or commentary (and it's tedious to fact-check a video.) This is not true of all sections of ATS and we have some wonderful researchers here (which is why a lot of us are regular readers) who DO all that kind of laborious tracking. HOWEVER... we did more of this deep crowdsourced fact checking with some pretty rigorous standards in the first 8 years or so and in fact ATS was mentioned a positive light by a number of media outlets.

However, currently we see in many sections more opinion and blog (and video "evidence" rather than tracking down the source and seeing if they know what they're talking aobut) than deep research - and a lot of quarreling and some very partisan name-calling. While it might make for a "grab the popcorn" moment, it doesn't set us up for being a main resource for "denying ignorance" - not in the same way it had been.

It's almost to the point we need to have names dropped inside the article and those same names say yes, I helped with this and yes I have this degree and have this type of experience. Kinda like a mini resume per person involved in the article. I'd rather have the facts rely on the reputation of the important subject matter experts than a website showering us with fudge, claiming to have our best interests in mind.

A number of sites that are laughed at or dismissed by folks here are indeed staffed by people with relevant experience and degrees (Politifact is one of them) and that are considered "middle ground" and not biased left or right.

So that's why Facebook and others use Snopes rather than ATS - the standard of proof and the standard of research.

It's a shame that we lost that culture. Our takedown of things like the John Titor fraud really was epic.

a reply to: Byrd

Yes, I'm noticed that happening to ATS as well over the last decade. We used to be that place that would validate an article or call it's bluff. It's why I loved ATS so much and why I kept on coming back.

But I see more people just trying to win arguments for the sake of winning and not for the sake of providing real information towards the topic. Also the amount of click bait here and else where is pretty sad.

It's not all gone, but sadly is a minority on this site the real juicy threads with level headed folks wanting to get to the bottom of something.

While I understand discussing opinions can lead to offhanded arguments, I also remember what ATS used to be about and because I saw how things once were, hurts a bit to see that same mindset not be the majority belief.

I didn't know that about snopes, their motto " rumor has it " doesn't do that factchecking aspect justice.

originally posted by: Tranceopticalinclined
a reply to: Byrd
But I see more people just trying to win arguments for the sake of winning and not for the sake of providing real information towards the topic. Also the amount of click bait here and else where is pretty sad.

Agreed. It's frustrating.

I didn't know that about snopes, their motto " rumor has it " doesn't do that factchecking aspect justice.

Perhaps because you're misinterpreting it or missing the corollary? The meaning is "I saw this rumor on the Internet... is it true?"