AI & the Holy Grail of Fact Checking - John Cook

'Generative debunking and the holy grail of fact-checking': John Cook discusses the usefulness of AI in fact checking. Misinformation researchers refer to automatic detection and debunking of misinformation as the “holy-grail of fact-checking”. Machine learning models have achieved high accuracy in detecting contrarian claims about climate change, as well as detecting logical fallacies in climate misinformation. However, there is a significant gap between misinformation detection and automatic generation of corrections that are both accurate and effective. Debunkings should adhere to the best-practice recommendations informed by psychological research, such as the fact-myth-fallacy-fact structure (aka the “truth sandwich”). In this presentation, Dr. John Cook will outline how he combined machine learning research on fallacy and contrarian claim detection with generative AI to develop a model that automatically debunks climate misinformation using “truth sandwich” corrections.

This was an event hosted by SciFuture held at The Clyde Hotel - Thursday 23rd.

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Adam Ford

[flickwtchr]

This is taking a can of worms, and shoving inside of it another can of worms, and then tossing it into a rabbit hole. I loathe the AI revolution.

[BestCosmologist]

If the goal is to improve the credibility of science, you should probably focus on the journals and universities.

[wbiro]

First, the Generative A.I. that is available to everyone conducts horrible research. I attribute this to arbitrary limits placed on it (such as time). It does not find the latest articles on a subject, and it commits many fallacies (such as Appeal to Authority, Appeal to Popularity, Appeal to Single Sources, and even Ad Hominem). This is also because Generative A.I. cannot think, it is a copy and (after some programmed synthesis) past engine, and it is not immune to copying, synthesizing, and pasting human garbage. There are also three settings in some versions: Creative, Normal, and Just the Facts. It is in creative mode that serves you loads of BS.


Second, there are higher principles that humans can live by than whether something changes the climate for the worse for higher organisms (and even that argument flies over the heads of climate change proponents and is not pointed out) (microbes, for example, can survive just about anything, it is higher organisms that are at risk):

1. One higher principle to live by is, If it is bad for higher organisms, then don't eject it into nature (no matter whether it affects the climate or environments or genetics).

2. The highest principle to live by is how something affects Broader Survival (and this applies across the board to any action, whether by humans, machines, or nature) (since it is the 'broadest' principle).



This is why the climate change argument fails to impress people -- it is not broad enough in its thinking, rendering it 'weak', and thus high on the 'to be disregarded and dismissed as trivial' scale, since humans need stronger thinking to live by (i.e. to motivate them).

[pascalbercker]

I've been reading the research on climate change for a long time now and I was generally convinced at least 25 years ago. While there's clearly a consensus on it's reality and on it's provenance (mostly from human activity), there's is surely no consensus on what will SOLVE the climate problem. Some think we need degrowth. Others think we can have green growth. Some think we need geoengineering. Some think we need nuclear. Some think we don't need nuclear but only wind and solar. And some think there is no hope - the Doomers. So who is right? I don't believe for a minute that you know who is right insofar as what "the" solution is. If you really had the solution in hand you should get awarded the Nobel prize. So I worry a bit about what you intend to label "misinformation" insofar as "climate solution skepticism" is concerned.

[pascalbercker]

I'm not a climate skeptic - not in the least little bit - having first begun to understand it in my graduate days studying philosophy. However your approach is so smug and so self-satisfied and feels so hubristic that I find your approach very unappealing and very close to being offensive. I would imagine that you are almost certainly preaching to the choir in this podcast - and I am indeed a part of that choir that needs no convincing insofar as climate change and global warming is concerned. If your approach feels offensive to people like me, how do you think that will play with the other side who needs convincing?

[pascalbercker]

If I were to ask you to PROVE to me that the Earth is in fact warming by 4 atomic bombs per second, how would you do it beyond just saying so? Do you think that people will believe you if you yourself are unable to come up with the way that claim was supported? Do you think that maybe instead of thinking in terms of "inserting" memes in people's brains you might actually treat them as genuinely confused human beings instead of some sort of robots whose CPU is to be manipulated?

[TomAtkinson]

Pretty sure the sun is the major driver. From NASA own website: Obliquity is why Earth has seasons. Over the last million years, it has varied between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees with respect to Earth’s orbital plane. The greater Earth’s axial tilt angle, the more extreme our seasons are, as each hemisphere receives more solar radiation during its summer, when the hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun, and less during winter, when it is tilted away. Larger tilt angles favor periods of deglaciation (the melting and retreat of glaciers and ice sheets). These effects aren’t uniform globally -- higher latitudes receive a larger change in total solar radiation than areas closer to the equator.

Earth’s axis is currently tilted 23.4 degrees, or about half way between its extremes, and this angle is very slowly decreasing in a cycle that spans about 41, 000 years. It was last at its maximum tilt about 10, 000 years ago and will reach its minimum tilt about 10, 000 years from now. As obliquity decreases, it gradually helps make our seasons milder, resulting in increasingly warmer winters, and cooler summers that gradually, over time, allow snow and ice at high latitudes to build up into large ice sheets. As ice cover increases, it reflects more of the Sun’s energy back into space, promoting even further cooling.