Fears AI factcheckers on X could increase promotion of conspiracy theories
A decision by Elon Musk’s X social media platform to enlist artificial intelligence chatbots to draft factchecks risks increasing the promotion of “lies and conspiracy theories”, a former UK technology minister has warned.Damian Collins accused Musk’s firm of “leaving it to bots to edit the news” after X announced on Tuesday that it would allow large language models to write community notes to clarify or correct contentious posts, before users approve them for publication.The notes have previously been written by humans.X said using AI to write factchecking notes – which sit beneath some X posts – “advances the state of the art in improving information quality on the internet”.Keith Coleman, the vice-president of product at X, said humans would review AI-generated notes and the note would appear only if people with a variety of viewpoints found it useful.
“We designed this pilot to be AI helping humans, with humans deciding,” he said.“We believe this can deliver both high quality and high trust.Additionally we published a paper along with the launch of our pilot, co-authored with professors and researchers from MIT, University of Washington, Harvard and Stanford laying out why this combination of AI and humans is such a promising direction.”But Collins said the system was already open to abuse and that AI agents working on community notes could allow “the industrial manipulation of what people see and decide to trust” on the platform, which has about 600 million users.It is the latest pushback against human factcheckers by US tech firms.
Last month Google said user-created factchecks, including by professional factchecking organisations, would be deprioritised in its search results.It said such checks were “no longer providing significant additional value for users”.In January, Meta announced it was getting rid of human factcheckers in the US and would adopt its own community notes system on Instagram, Facebook and Threads.X’s research paper outlining its new factchecking system criticised professional factchecking as often slow and limited in scale and said it “lacks trust by large sections of the public”.AI-created community notes “have the potential to be faster to produce, less effort to generate, and of high quality”, it said.
Human and AI-written notes would be submitted into the same pool and X users would vote for which were most useful and should appear on the platform.AI would draft “a neutral well-evidenced summary”, the research paper said.Trust in community notes “stems not from who drafts the notes, but from the people that evaluate them”, it said.But Andy Dudfield, the head of AI at the UK factchecking organisation Full Fact, said: “These plans risk increasing the already significant burden on human reviewers to check even more draft notes, opening the door to a worrying and plausible situation in which notes could be drafted, reviewed, and published entirely by AI without the careful consideration that human input provides.”Samuel Stockwell, a research associate at the Centre for Emerging Technology and Security at the Alan Turing Institute, said: “AI can help factcheckers process the huge volumes of claims flowing daily through social media, but much will depend on the quality of safeguards X puts in place against the risk that these AI ‘note writers’ could hallucinate and amplify misinformation in their outputs.
AI chatbots often struggle with nuance and context, but are good at confidently providing answers that sound persuasive even when untrue.That could be a dangerous combination if not effectively addressed by the platform.”Researchers have found that people perceive human-authored community notes as significantly more trustworthy than simple misinformation flags.An analysis of several hundred misleading posts on X in the run-up to last year’s presidential election found that in three-quarters of cases, accurate community notes were not being displayed, indicating they were not being upvoted by users.These misleading posts, including claims that Democrats were importing illegal voters and the 2020 presidential election was stolen, amassed more than 2bn views, according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
Bank of England rolls out looser mortgage rules to help first-time buyers
The Bank of England has rolled out looser mortgage rules that policymakers hope will help 36,000 more first-time buyers on to the housing ladder each year.New guidelines announced by the UK’s central bank mean that individual banks and building societies can offer more high loan-to-income (LTI) mortgages, which are equal to, or worth more than, 4.5 times a borrower’s annual earnings.While high LTI loans are usually considered more risky, the Bank said most banks were not taking advantage of their individual caps, meaning there were fewer available to borrowers than hoped.Sam Woods, the chief executive of the Bank’s regulatory arm, the Prudential Regulation Authority, said the changes should benefit tens of thousands of first-time buyers
Prax Lindsey oil refinery owners urged to ‘do decent thing’ for workers
The UK government has written to the husband-and-wife team behind the insolvent Prax Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire urging them to “do the decent thing” and support affected workers financially, amid mounting concern that finding a buyer for the plant will be difficult.In a letter to the Prax Group owners, Arani and Sanjeev Kumar Soosaipillai, seen by the Guardian, the junior energy minister Michael Shanks said the government was “urgently exploring what support can be offered to the workforce at this difficult time”.He added: “However, we strongly encourage you to do the decent thing and publicly commit to make a voluntary financial contribution to support workers at [Prax Lindsey Oil Refinery].“This could be through direct financial support to them or funding for retraining schemes to ensure that they can pursue new job opportunities if the refinery cannot be sold.”More than 100 fuel tanker drivers were told on Monday they had lost their jobs
Seven UK housebuilders to pay £100m to fund affordable homes after CMA investigation
Seven housebuilders have agreed to pay £100m to affordable housing schemes after the UK competition watchdog found evidence that they may be sharing commercially sensitive details that affect the price of homes.The developers – Barratt Redrow, Bellway, Berkeley Group, Bloor Homes, Persimmon, Taylor Wimpey and Vistry – have not admitted any wrongdoing but have agreed to make the combined payment, which will be split between affordable housing programmes across the four UK nations.The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) opened its investigation into the housebuilders last year after it found evidence of information sharing that “prevented and distorted” competition, including on pricing levels, the number of property viewings, and incentives offered to buyers such as upgraded kitchens or stamp duty contributions.The housebuilders have told the CMA they will refrain from sharing certain types of information with other housebuilders, including prices that homes have been sold for, except in limited circumstances.If the watchdog accepts the commitments, they will become legally binding and mean it will not have to decide whether the housebuilders broke competition law
Looser bonus rules and tax breaks needed to save London stock market, says CBI
The London stock market risks “drifting into irrelevance” without government and regulatory reforms, ranging from tax breaks for stock market listings to looser bonus rules for directors, a lobbying group has said.The 20 recommendation put forward by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), which lobbies on behalf of UK businesses, suggest financial incentives, marketing campaigns and boardroom pay are central to guaranteeing the future success of the London Stock Exchange, which has been losing stock market listings and floats to foreign rivals.“With domestic capital shifting away from UK equities, new listings having slowed … and high-growth firms often looking overseas to raise capital, the UK stands at a pivotal moment for the future of its public equity markets,” the CBI said.The lobbying group claims that tax breaks could persuade more companies to list their shares. By making the costs of a flotation or initial public offering (IPO) tax deductible, the government would be ensuring more cash is available for reinvestment and growth, the CBI’s Revitalising UK Public Markets report said
London’s stock exchange needs a shot in the arm from the Treasury | Nils Pratley
A marketing campaign to promote the joys of investing in the London stock market? The idea may sound slightly desperate, and will fall flat if proponents think they are rehashing the one-off “Tell Sid” privatisation campaign for British Gas from 40 years ago. But, actually, yes, give it a go.As the CBI puts it in a report out on Wednesday, a “new narrative” is needed to stop the London Stock Exchange drifting into irrelevance. Since 2016, 143 UK-listed companies have exited to private equity takeovers. That tally is depressing if one agrees that corporate transparency and accountability are better in the public arena and that a healthy economy needs a buzzy exchange
ASA cracks down on online pharmacies advertising weight loss injections
Online pharmacies are no longer allowed to run adverts for weight loss injections, the advertising watchdog has ruled, as part of a crackdown on what has been described as a “wild west” culture of online selling.In the UK, advertising prescription-only medications (POMs) – which includes all weight loss jabs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro – to the public is illegal. However, a Guardian investigation previously found some online pharmacies either breaking these rules outright, or exploiting grey areas to peddle the medications to the public.Now the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has released nine new rulings that, it says, will set clear precedents for advertisers.The ASA said the new rulings meant that while pharmacies could continue to mention weight loss injections on their websites, provided they were not shown on homepages or landing pages from other links, adverts were banned from using the phrases “weight loss injections” and “weight loss pen”, and the treatments must instead be marketed as part of a wider service, including a consultation and prescription
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