Historically, fact-checking has reduced misinformation and disinformation, especially from politicians. With fact-checking, politicians now know they will be fact-checked, so their attempts to distort information have reduced. Meanwhile, in the present age, misinformation is rampant in a hyper-networked media ecosystem where billions of pieces of information are shared daily.
Meaning more focus should be placed on "misinformation." This makes fact-checkers’ jobs all the more important, but what happens when artificial intelligence (AI) becomes a fact-checker? Lately, I've noticed something surprising: people are actually using Grok. Like, a lot. They're not just using it; they're replying to posts on X — asking Grok, "Is this true?
Grok is an AI chatbot created by xAI, a company founded by Elon Musk, and integrated into X (formerly Twitter). It’s meant to rival tools like ChatGPT, with a bit of a cheeky or rebellious personality. But I must say, X is getting weirder as Grok is slowly becoming a fact-checker for people on the social media platform.
Here's a made-up example of what I'm talking about, Grok:
@UserX: Birds aren't real —they're government drones recharging on power lines.
@UserY: @grok, can you confirm this?
@grok: Birds are biological creatures that have been extensively studied by scientists. They are not surveillance drones. They perch on power lines to rest, not to recharge.
In countries like Nigeria and India, Grok has already been treated as a fact-checking tool, with varying degrees of accuracy. However, it's important to know that there's a limit to how useful a chatbot like Grok can be on social platforms because AIs, generally, are known to make up fake news.
For example, Grok falsely accused American basketball star Klay Thompson of brick vandalism when, in fact, it was the athlete’s home that was vandalized with bricks. However, most people ran with the story before the athlete could set the record straight. This is an exact example of "misinformation."
However, with all the good and bad of Grok fact-checking contents, experts believe there might be some risks to this, stressing how easily AI can make mistakes. This is where AI regulation comes in. After Grok spread inaccurate information before the US elections, five secretaries of state urged Elon Musk to update the AI model. The government also noted that Grok’s tendency to create inaccurate summaries had increased.
Additionally, AI-generated misinformation can be dangerous, especially in places like Nigeria, where false information spreads quickly and affects public opinion. Experts warn that people should not treat AI tools like Grok as always correct, and instead, humans should work alongside AI to check facts and avoid harm.
Aside from that, don't you think that using Grok to summarize a whole tweet is killing the beauty of X? Let's take, for instance, I saw someone ask Grok to explain the context of some deep stan lore tweet about Wizkid and Davido, and I kind of felt sad in a way. Back in the days, you needed to actually spend tons of time scrolling the strange motions of the Wizkid FC to be able to understand their garbled system of beliefs — and there was some beauty to that.
Now, you can have Grok — or another chatbot — just spit it out. I'm not sure that's a totally good thing.
Lastly, let's ask ourselves this question. Can AI replace human fact-checkers? I would like to know your opinion in the comment section. But before that, here's my opinion: AI may eventually take over some parts of fact-checking due to its rapid progress, but I strongly believe it can't fully replace human fact-checkers, who bring critical thinking and judgement that machines lack.
As AI-generated misinformation grows, the real challenge will be telling what’s true from what’s not in a world where machines could create most of the content we see online.
