How to Fact-Check AI-Generated Content

If you work with generative AI, learning how to fact-check AI-generated content is essential. AI tools are revolutionizing content creation. They can help us generate ideas and overcome writer’s block, automate tedious tasks, and work more efficiently. But, like any tool, they only work effectively with the input of a trained professional. This is especially true when it comes to fact-checking.

This post will explain what fact-checking is – and why it’s important – before outlining some simple steps for fact-checking AI-generated content.

What Is Fact-Checking?

Fact-checking is an important process that involves reviewing content in order to ensure it is accurate and truthful. Standard steps involved in fact-checking include:

• Critically examining all facts, statements, and claims
• Analyzing all source materials used
• Making sure conclusions are properly communicated

Fact-checking is important because it raises the overall quality of the content. Making sure no false information is published ensures no damage is done to the creator’s reputation or business.

Book publishing, journalism, and many other industries rely on the fact-checking process to guarantee the quality of the content they produce. Non-fiction books, documentaries, TV scripts, and social media content are just a few of the things that require fact-checking.

What is Verification?

While fact-checking and verification are similar processes, they are not exactly the same thing.

Verification is a process that often happens after content is published. It focuses less on the analysis of facts or data and more on confirming that something is what it claims to be. For example, whether a video clip actually shows the time and place it claims to.

Why Is Fact-Checking AI Important?

Using AI tools to generate content is becoming more and more popular. Anyone can now use programs like OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, etc., to generate written, video, and visual content.

As we touched upon before, there are many advantages of using AI to generate content. However, there are also many potential legal and ethical issues. If you work with content in any capacity, it’s important to be aware of these issues and how to mitigate them. You should never publish AI-generated content without checking it first – or having a great proofreader or editor do it for you.

Here are some common issues that come up when generating content with AI:

• Misinformation: AI tools’ responses to certain prompts can be inaccurate.
• Bias: If the prompt given to an AI tool is biased, the content will likely also be biased. What is produced is limited by the information you give.
• Offensive content: Because everything produced by AI relies on all the preexisting information on the internet, the content that gets produced could involve ideologies, historical references, dialogue, etc., that can be considered hurtful or discriminatory to certain people.
• Hallucinations: Generative AI tools can also produce what are known as hallucinations. This content can be completely wrong and often incomprehensible or strange.

To avoid any of the potential issues mentioned above, it is important to have all AI-generated content checked by a professional – or learn how to do it yourself!

How to Fact-Check AI

The approach to fact-checking AI-generated content is very similar to how you would fact-check something created by a human.

1. Identify the Facts

Review the content in detail and identify any statements or claims that need to be checked. There could be mistakes anywhere – such as names or dates – so don’t overlook the finer details too! It’s wise to check:

• People’s names and official titles
• Company and brand names
• Place names and locations
• Numbers (e.g., dates, measurements, statistics, prices, and ages)
• Timeframes and sequences of events
• Quotations (i.e., who they are attributed to and whether they are written exactly as spoken)
• Any potentially offensive or possibly biased statements, references, etc.

Always make detailed, well-organized notes that you can reference later. As mentioned, generative AI can occasionally produce content that is biased or offensive. During this first step, it is helpful to flag anything that may not be incorrect but could be considered hurtful or unfit for publication.

2. Categorize

This step is optional, but it can be helpful to organize all the information into various categories, such as:

• Dates
• Places
• Names
• Statements
• Historical claims
• Images or infographics

This can help streamline the fact-checking process, as you can deal with each type of fact one at a time.

3. Analyze Source Material

This can often be the hardest step. Content generated by AI normally doesn’t use direct quotes, but it will often quote secondary source material. Analyzing this kind of information can be difficult if you don’t know the source.

Unlike when working with a human, you can’t just ask the AI tool what they referenced when generating the content. Even if you could, you have no way of being sure that the sources are real or accurate.

Since it can be hard to determine if the source material is primary, secondary, or even reliable, fact-checking AI-generated content may require finding new source material that can validate – or disprove – the claims generated by AI.

This is a good time to deal with any biased or offensive content you may have noticed during your initial reviews. Choosing to omit or change any inappropriate material may also require finding new source material. Ideally, any claims should be cross-referenced against several credible sources. These could be:

• Research studies
• Subject matter experts
• Reputable databases
• Well-known, authoritative websites

4. Draw Conclusions

The final step is to record and communicate your conclusions and recommendations with your client. Follow these simple steps to make this process as simple as possible:

• Record everything you have discovered and make sure it is collated in an easy-to-understand format.
• Outline appropriate recommendations, corrections, or areas for improvement.
• Share your findings with the content creator or editor.

Becoming a Fact-Checker

If you are interested in fact-checking and want to take advantage of the new opportunities that the rise in AI-generated content has created, consider taking our How To Fact-Check course. It will teach you how to identify reliable sources, analyze complex data sets, and effectively apply fact-checking tools and processes.

With our 14-day money-back guarantee, you can try it risk-free today!

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