Jamaine Punzalan

Article (news)

Agence France-Presse

<p>As misinformation exploded during India&#x27;s four-day conflict with Pakistan, social media users turned to an AI chatbot for verification -- only to encounter more falsehoods, underscoring its unreliability as a fact-checking tool.</p><p>With tech platforms reducing human fact-checkers, users are increasingly relying on AI-powered chatbots -- including xAI&#x27;s Grok, OpenAI&#x27;s ChatGPT, and Google&#x27;s Gemini -- in search of reliable information.</p><p>&quot;Hey @Grok, is this true?&quot; has become a common query on Elon Musk&#x27;s platform X, where the AI assistant is built in, reflecting the growing trend of seeking instant debunks on social media.</p><p>But the responses are often themselves riddled with misinformation.</p><p>Grok -- now under renewed scrutiny for inserting &quot;white genocide,&quot; a far-right conspiracy theory, into unrelated queries -- wrongly identified old video footage from Sudan&#x27;s Khartoum airport as a missile strike on Pakistan&#x27;s Nur Khan airbase during the country&#x27;s recent conflict with India.</p><p>Unrelated footage of a building on fire in Nepal was misidentified as &quot;likely&quot; showing Pakistan&#x27;s military response to Indian strikes.</p><p>&quot;The growing reliance on Grok as a fact-checker comes as X and other major tech companies have scaled back investments in human fact-checkers,&quot; McKenzie Sadeghi, a researcher with the disinformation watchdog NewsGuard, told AFP.</p><p>&quot;Our research has repeatedly found that AI chatbots are not reliable sources for news and information, particularly when it comes to breaking news,&quot; she warned.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>&#x27;FABRICATED&#x27;</strong></div><div><br/></div><p>NewsGuard&#x27;s research found that 10 leading chatbots were prone to repeating falsehoods, including Russian disinformation narratives and false or misleading claims related to the recent Australian election.</p><p>In a recent study of eight AI search tools, the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University found that chatbots were &quot;generally bad at declining to answer questions they couldn&#x27;t answer accurately, offering incorrect or speculative answers instead.&quot;</p><p>When AFP fact-checkers in Uruguay asked Gemini about an AI-generated image of a woman, it not only confirmed its authenticity but fabricated details about her identity and where the image was likely taken.</p><p>Grok recently labeled a purported video of a giant anaconda swimming in the Amazon River as &quot;genuine,&quot; even citing credible-sounding scientific expeditions to support its false claim.</p><p>In reality, the video was AI-generated, AFP fact-checkers in Latin America reported, noting that many users cited Grok&#x27;s assessment as evidence the clip was real.</p><p>Such findings have raised concerns as surveys show that online users are increasingly shifting from traditional search engines to AI chatbots for information gathering and verification.</p><p>The shift also comes as Meta announced earlier this year it was ending its third-party fact-checking program in the United States, turning over the task of debunking falsehoods to ordinary users under a model known as &quot;Community Notes,&quot; popularized by X.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/nation/2025/1/10/meta-s-fact-check-pivot-to-hit-orgs-in-ph-global-south-worst-experts-1549">Meta’s fact-check pivot to hit orgs in PH, ‘Global South’ worst — experts</a></div><p>Researchers have repeatedly questioned the effectiveness of <a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/technology/2025/3/14/meta-tests-community-notes-to-replace-fact-checkers-1356">&quot;Community Notes&quot; </a>in combating falsehoods.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/technology/2025/1/11/biden-slams-really-shameful-meta-decision-to-end-us-fact-checking-0806">Biden slams &#x27;really shameful&#x27; Meta decision to end US fact-checking</a></div><div><br/></div><div><strong>&#x27;BIASED ANSWERS&#x27;</strong></div><div><br/></div><p>Human fact-checking has long been a flashpoint in a hyperpolarized political climate, particularly in the United States, where conservative advocates maintain it suppresses free speech and censors right-wing content -- something professional fact-checkers vehemently reject.</p><p>AFP currently works in 26 languages with Facebook&#x27;s fact-checking program, including in Asia, Latin America, and the European Union.</p><p>The quality and accuracy of AI chatbots can vary, depending on how they are trained and programmed, prompting concerns that their output may be subject to political influence or control.</p><p>Musk&#x27;s xAI recently blamed an &quot;unauthorized modification&quot; for causing Grok to generate unsolicited posts referencing &quot;white genocide&quot; in South Africa.</p><p>When AI expert David Caswell asked Grok who might have modified its system prompt, the chatbot named Musk as the &quot;most likely&quot; culprit.</p><p>Musk, the South African-born billionaire backer of President Donald Trump, has previously peddled the unfounded claim that South Africa&#x27;s leaders were &quot;openly pushing for genocide&quot; of white people.</p><p>&quot;We have seen the way AI assistants can either fabricate results or give biased answers after human coders specifically change their instructions,&quot; Angie Holan, director of the International Fact-Checking Network, told AFP.</p><p>&quot;I am especially concerned about the way Grok has mishandled requests concerning very sensitive matters after receiving instructions to provide pre-authorized answers.&quot;</p><div> </div>

<p>As misinformation exploded during India's four-day conflict with Pakistan, social media users turned to an AI chatbot for verification -- only to encounter more falsehoods, underscoring its unreliability as a fact-checking tool.</p>

As misinformation exploded during India's four-day conflict with Pakistan, social media users turned to an AI chatbot for verification -- only to encounter more falsehoods, underscoring its unreliability as a fact-checking tool.

Hey chatbot, is this true? AI 'factchecks' sow misinformation

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Hey chatbot, is this true? AI 'factchecks' sow misinformation

Agence France-Presse,

Anuj Chopra,

Sumit Dubey,

and Maria Clara Pestre

Published Jun 02, 2025 09:52 AM PHT

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