Introduction
Generative AI can seem scary, especially when you are not familiar with it but AI can be really helpful for fact-checking once you know how to use it. Fact-checking AI is widely used in journalism to speed up work done by humans as the amount of media and news produced increases daily and would be impossible to individually check by hand. “Fact-checking sites are an important element to fight against disinformation, and artificial intelligence has emerged as an important asset”, though it is not perfect (Gutierrez-Caneda, 2024).
How to Fact-Check using AI
If you come across a news headline or quote from a politician and you want to find out quickly how accurate it is, AI sites like ChatGPT can help. ChatGPT is a free to use website, you do not have to provide any personal information to use it if you so choose. It can be used kind of like Google, but instead of having to go through all the different opinions and articles yourself, ChatGPT will compare news sources and summarize them for you.
For example, I saw this Fox News headline below on Facebook and had ChatGPT fact-check it for me.
First, I asked simply, “Can you fact-check a headline I saw?”. ChatGPT prompted me to paste in the headline so it could “verify its accuracy using reliable sources”. I copy and pasted into the chat the headline and in just a few seconds I had a succinct reply from ChatGPT. It concluded the headline was accurate, Trump was quoted saying the economy will “do fantatically”. But it also provided more context for me mentioning the recent signs of economic strain since Trump took office and cited Trump stating this was a “transition period” and that he is confident for the long run. At the bottom of the response, ChatGPT cites it’s sources with links to all the articles it got it’s information from.
I wanted to dig further and find out if Trump had validation in his claims that this was just a “transition period” and a recession was not inevitable. ChatGPT replied with an analysis of both perspectives, Trump’s view and the signs pointing to recession. At the end, ChatGPT summarized that “Trump’s optimism is not baseless, however, economic indicators show real risk”.
This entire interaction took less than 10 minutes for me to read and I now have a better understanding of the headline I saw. I could continue asking questions, ChatGPT even offered to generate a simple chart to compare the recent recession signals to previous downturns. This saved me a lot of time because I did not have to find and read different sources to get a full picture, AI summarized several sources for me in seconds.
AI can be used maliciously on social media to disinform viewers but AI can also be used to debunk these fake stories, you just have to know how to use it.
Fox News. (2025, May 2). President Donald Trump on Friday dismissed fears of a short-term recession, saying the economy will "do fantastically" in the long run. FaceBook. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/12CR8pYV6GF/
Gutierrez-Caneda, B., & Vazquez-Herrero, J. (2024, May 27). Redrawing the lines against disinformation: How AI is shaping the present and future of fact-checking. Tripodos Communication, (55), 55-74. https://doi.org/10.51698/tripodos.2024.55.04