Takes one to know one: New tool uses AI to spot text written by AI
A new tool uses AI to spot text written by AI
Jul 26, 2019
AI algorithms can generate text
convincing enough to fool the average human—potentially providing a way to
mass-produce fake news, bogus reviews, and phony social accounts. Thankfully,
AI can now be used to identify fake text, too.
The
news: Researchers from Harvard University and the MIT-IBM
Watson AI Labhave developed a new tool for
spotting text that has been generated using AI. Called the Giant Language Model
Test Room (GLTR), it exploits the fact that AI text generators rely on
statistical patterns in text, as opposed to the actual meaning of words and
sentences. In other words, the tool can tell if the words you’re reading seem
too predictable to have been written by a human hand.
The
context: Misinformation is increasingly being automated, and the
technology required to generate fake text and imagery is
advancing fast. AI-powered tools such as this may become
valuable weapons in the fight to catch fake news, deepfakes, and twitter bots.
Faking
it: Researchers at OpenAI recently demonstrated an algorithm capable
of dreaming up surprisingly realistic passages. They fed huge
amounts of text into a large machine-learning model, which learned to pick up
statistical patterns in those words. The Harvard team developed their tool
using a version of the OpenAI code that was released publicly.
How
predictable: GLTR highlights words that are statistically likely to
appear after the preceding word in the text. As shown in the passage above
(from Infinite
Jest), the most predictable words are green; less predictable are
yellow and red; and least predictable are purple. When tested on snippets of
text written by OpenAI’s algorithm, it finds a lot of predictability. Genuine
news articles and scientific abstracts contain more surprises.
Mind
and machine: The researchers behind GLTR carried out
another experiment as well. They asked Harvard students to identify
AI-generated text—first without the tool, and then with the help of its
highlighting. The students were able to spot only half of all fakes on their
own, but 72% when given the tool. “Our goal is to create human and AI
collaboration systems,” says Sebastian Gehrmann, a PhD student involved in the
work.
If you're interested, you can try it out for yourself.
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