AI Case Study
Artificial Intelligence and News Bots: Journalists’ Responsibility to Harness Technology Journalists can utilize the power of AI and news bots to communicate truthful information online and connect with their readers. During the COVID-19 pandemic, misinformation has frequently been spread through word of mouth, incorrect news reports and false facts in social media banter. There is another source responsible for pandemic misinformation, however, that is often ignored: Twitter bots. In May of 2020, NPR reported that “nearly half of the Twitter accounts spreading messages on the social media platform about the coronavirus pandemic are likely bots,” according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (Allyn). These tweets included false information such as mannequins filling up hospital beds for COVID-19 patients and COVID-19 being spread through 5G wireless towers (Allyn). A bot can be defined as “a computer that attempts to talk to humans through technology that was designed for huma...