The FactDeMice Project: AI as a Tool for Journalists and Businesses, Not a Arbiter of Truth

Since last year, an interesting international project called FactDeMice has been underway at the Faculty of Information Technology. Broadly speaking, it focuses on the field of fact-checking—verifying facts based on textual evidence, detecting fake reviews, and automatically extracting misleading claims. The principal investigator is Dr. Martin Fajčík from the Institute of Computer Graphics and Multimedia and the KNOT@FIT research group.

Even if we consider only the brief description of the project provided above, its potential practical impact and social relevance are evident. However, caution and modest expectations are warranted. “The fundamental problem in the world of fact-checking is the very definition of truth itself. And even if we arrive at it, an even greater challenge is convincing people that this is indeed the case. A major turning point in our field was the introduction of the Community Notes tool on what was then Twitter. Currently, the effort to provide context is something of a gold standard,” comments Fajčík on the ambitions of this and other projects.

The first content pillar of the project and, at the same time, the primary focus of the research by the Brno experts involved in the project is the area of misinformation in comments found, for example, on news platforms. Specifically, this involves their identification, verification, and subsequent addition of context. FactDeMice is a bilateral project. The second research partner is the Taiwanese National Taipei University of Technology. It provides expertise in the second research pillar: detection of fake reviews. The Taiwanese side is focusing on reviews of technology products; in the second phase, the focus will shift to misleading restaurant reviews in discussion forums.

Details on the goals and outputs of this exceptionally interesting project can be found in the press release.