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.
Google undercounts its carbon emissions, report finds
In 2021, Google set a lofty goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2030. Yet in the years since then, the company has moved in the opposite direction as it invests in energy-intensive artificial intelligence. In its latest sustainability report, Google said its carbon emissions had increased 51% between 2019 and 2024.New research aims to debunk even that enormous figure and provide context to Google’s sustainability reports, painting a bleaker picture. A report authored by non-profit advocacy group Kairos Fellowship found that, between 2019 and 2024, Google’s carbon emissions actually went up by 65%
‘A billion people backing you’: China transfixed as Musk turns against Trump
Few break-ups have as many gossiping observers as the fallout between the once inseparable Donald Trump and Elon Musk.The ill-fated bromance between the US president and the world’s richest man, which once raised questions about American oligarchy, is now being pored over by social media users in China, many of whom are Team Musk.The latest drama comes from Musk’s pledge to found a new political party, the America party, if Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill, which Musk described as “insane” passed the Senate this week (it did). Musk had already vowed to unseat lawmakers who backed Trump’s flagship piece of legislation, which is expected to increase US national debt by $3.3tn
AI companies start winning the copyright fight
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. If you need me after this newsletter publishes, I will be busy poring over photos from Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s wedding, the gaudiest and most star-studded affair to disrupt technology news this year. I found it a tacky and spectacular affair. Everyone who was anyone was there, except for Charlize Theron, who, unprompted, said on Monday: “I think we might be the only people who did not get an invite to the Bezos wedding. But that’s OK, because they suck and we’re cool
China hosts first fully autonomous AI robot football match
They think it’s all over … for human footballers at least.The pitch wasn’t the only artificial element on display at a football match in China on Saturday. Four teams of humanoid robots took on each other in Beijing, in games of three-a-side powered by artificial intelligence.While the modern game has faced accusations of becoming near-robotic in its obsession with tactical perfection, the games in China showed that AI won’t be taking Kylian Mbappé’s job just yet.Footage of the humanoid kickabout showed the robots struggling to kick the ball or stay upright, performing pratfalls that would have earned their flesh-and-blood counterparts a yellow card for diving
Whitehall’s ambition to cut costs using AI is fraught with risk
A Dragons’ Den-style event this week, where tech companies will have 20 minutes to pitch ideas for increasing automation in the British justice system, is one of numerous examples of how the cash-strapped Labour government hopes artificial intelligence and data science can save money and improve public services.Amid warnings from critics that Downing Street has been “drinking the Kool-Aid” on AI, the Department of Health and Social Care this week announced an AI early warning system to detect dangerous maternity services after a series of scandals, and Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said he wants one in eight operations to be conducted by a robot within a decade.AI is being used to prioritise actions on the 25,000 pieces of correspondence the Department for Work and Pensions receives each day and to detect potential fraud and error in benefit claims. Ministers even have access to an AI tool that is supposed to provide a “vibe check” on parliamentary opinion to help them weigh the political risks of policy proposals.Again and again, ministers are turning to technology to tackle acute crises that in the past might have been dealt with by employing more staff or investing more money
Musk vows to unseat lawmakers who support Trump’s sweeping spending bill
Elon Musk has vowed to unseat lawmakers who support Donald Trump’s sweeping budget bill, which he has criticized because it would increase the country’s deficit by $3.3tn.“Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame! And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth,” he wrote on his social media platform, X.A few hours later he added that if the “insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day”.With these threats, lobbed at lawmakers over social media, the tech billionaire has launched himself back into a rift with the US president he helped prop up
Returning Suaalii spells salvation for Wallabies as Lions challenge looms | Angus Fontaine
Tour de France team boss Jonathan Vaughters blasts UCI over rider safety
Sonay Kartal reaches Wimbledon fourth round for first time after sweeping past Parry
Wimbledon chiefs defend AI use as Jack Draper says line calls not ‘100% accurate’
Ice towels and thermal stress techniques: how players deal with heat at Wimbledon
Andy Farrell seeks more bite from Lions for fierce contest against Waratahs