Tackling Online Misinformation with Generative AI: A comparison of ChatGPT and Microsoft CoPilot

The study uses AI auditing methodology to investigate how chatbots evaluate true, false, and borderline statements on five topics: COVID-19, Russian aggression against Ukraine, the Holocaust, climate change, and LGBTQ+ related debates. It compares how the chatbots perform in high- and low-resource languages by using prompts in English, Russian, and Ukrainian. Furthermore, it explores the ability of chatbots to evaluate statements according to political communication concepts of disinformation, misinformation, and conspiracy theory, using definition-oriented prompts. The discussion will focus on the potential of LLM-based chatbots in tackling different forms of false information in online environments, pointing at the substantial variation in terms of how such potential is realized due to specific factors, such as language of the prompt or the topic. It will also provide an outlook into the future studies using similar methodology on a larger set of misinformation items in more languages.

Please register here to participate: plamadiso[at]weizenbaum-institut.de

Elizaveta Kuznetsova is a senior researcher working at the intersection of Communication Studies and International Relations. She leads a research group ‘Platform Algorithms and Digital Propaganda’ at Weizenbaum Institute in Berlin. Her research focus is on digital propaganda, social media platforms and international media. Elizaveta holds a PhD in International Politics from City, University of London. She is a former fellow at the Davis Center, Harvard University and at the Center for the European Studies at Boston University.

In the Plamadiso Talks series, the research group “Digital Economy, Internet Ecosystem, and Internet Policy” invites experts to discuss topics relating to Platforms, Markets, and the Digital Society.