The Reason AI Is Still Baffled By Covid-19 Misinformation

AI systems are not yet able to identify and categorize content they have not seen before.

As a result, human reviewers are still essential to reviewing that material and the volume of new information - accurate or not - is too much for them to keep up. JL

Karen Hao reports in MIT Technology Review:

AI hasn’t played as big a role in handling the surge of coronavirus misinformation, such as conspiracy theories about the virus’s origin and fake news of cures. Facebook has instead relied primarily on human reviewers at over 60 partner fact-checking organizations. The challenge reveals the limitations of AI-based content moderation. Such systems can detect content similar to what they’ve seen before, but they founder when new kinds of misinformation appear.

The news: Facebook has set out the updates it has made to its AI systems for detecting hate speech and disinformation. The tech giant says 88.8% of all the hate speech it removed this quarter was detected by AI, up from 80.2% in the previous quarter. The AI can remove content automatically if the system has high confidence that it is hate speech, but most is still checked by a human being first.

Behind the scenes: The improvement is largely driven by two updates to Facebook’s AI systems. First, the company is now using massive natural-language models that can better decipher the nuance and meaning of a post. The second update is that Facebook’s systems can now analyze content that consists of images and text combined, such as hateful memes. 

Covid lies: Despite these updates, however, AI hasn’t played as big a role in handling the surge of coronavirus misinformation, such as conspiracy theories about the virus’s origin and fake news of cures. Facebook has instead relied primarily on human reviewers at over 60 partner fact-checking organizations. 

Why it matters: The challenge reveals the limitations of AI-based content moderation. Such systems can detect content similar to what they’ve seen before, but they founder when new kinds of misinformation appear. In recent years, Facebook has invested heavily in developing AI systems that can adapt more quickly, but the problem is not just the company’s: it remains one of the biggest research challenges in the field.