AI and Fake News

I just completed a busy month writing a post every day in October for National Cyber Security Awareness Week. It was fun and, of course, I learned a lot. This is an annual event and it generates a lot of good content. Watch for it next year!

The theme of Week 1 was to stop and think before you connect and I posted some good tips and links to safety resources. Week 2 focused on young people and jobs and had some popular posts on the number and kinds of jobs available, as well as the skills needed. Week 3 was about workplace cyber safety and I posted about small businesses, who need to ensure cyber security also. Week 4 was about protecting our cyber infrastructure. That's a super-important topic but not really relevant for my target audience of non-technical internet users. So I set myself the subject of fake news and found it fascinating. I'd especially draw the attention of you and your students to the post on identifying fake news on social media, but it's all useful.

One of the few light moments in that series of posts is this video showing how dance moves can be superimposed on even the klutziest of us.

It's a great example of what AI can do in a context that students will enjoy. It's less about fake news than it is about how to deceive with video in general. There's a link to a paper by the authors explaining how they made the video. It would cover two important issues in the classroom--burgeoning uses of AI and deceptive videos that are almost impossible to detect without sophisticated tools, some of which are described in the post.

Consider using it in the classroom!