Fact Checking
5 Considerations When Choosing a Fact Checker
Fact-checking is a key step in publishing content with confidence. Learn about the top considerations to keep in mind when choosing a fact checker for your editorial toolkit.
Fact-checking is a key step in publishing content with confidence. Incorporating a fact-checker into your publishing process is an excellent way to streamline your workflow and highlight facts that may need further review.
To help you find the best fact checking tool for your editorial toolkit, we’ve gathered a list of top considerations to keep in mind when choosing a fact checker.
One of the biggest considerations is how recent the data the tool has access to actually is.
If you’re using a tool like ChatGPT to fact-check, the Poynter Institute noted in May 2023 that it had a “knowledge cutoff” of September 2021.
Forbes later reported in September 2023 that this cutoff would be addressed through a partnership with Microsoft that provided ChatGPT with access to the Microsoft Bing search engine. The article notes that the update was set to be accessible through premium subscriptions such as “Plus” and “Enterprise.”
Currently (as of the publication of this article), OpenAI’s Help Guides advise that GPT-4o has a “knowledge cutoff” date of October 2023.
If a tool was trained on data that was only as recent as a specific year, such as 2021 or 2023, it wouldn’t have knowledge of anything that happened after that point, including events and other details.
Given the speed with which news and social media publications spread, this is a limitation that it’s important to be aware of when looking for a fact-checking tool, or using a generative AI tool, such as GPT-4o.
The Originality.ai fact-checker is not limited to September 2021. Originality.ai offers real-time fact-checking capabilities so that you can verify facts in real time.
With rapid changes in technology, it’s important to look for a fact checker that stays up-to-date.
For instance, if you’re using ChatGPT to review facts, keep an eye on its releases to find out the recency of its data (such as the update from a September 2021 to October 2023 knowledge cut-off).
Fact-checkers need to be updated and retrained regularly in order to stay current and up-to-date. Training AI is resource-intensive and takes a great deal of time. Yet, without this ongoing training, the AI models can stay “frozen in time.”
Our team at Originality.ai is always working to offer best-in-class tools, including the Originality.ai Fact Checker, which offers real-time fact-checking.
If you opt to use AI for fact-checking, review facts carefully to avoid AI hallucinations. AI hallucinations occur when a generative AI tool presents something that’s false as a fact.
For instance, in the Google 2023 demo of Bard (which later became Gemini), it made an incorrect statement about the James Webb Space Telescope that resulted in a $100 billion drop in market value.
Learn more in our guide on the benefits of fact-checking.
Further, if AI training data contains biases, misinformation, or is missing information outright, the AI could mimic those biases, posing a number of problems across industries.
One of the biggest challenges when choosing a fact-checker is maintaining transparency. As an editor, content marketer, or web publisher you need to be able to answer questions like, where did the tool find its information from?
Users need to know why or how a tool arrives at its conclusion. However, generative AI tools don’t always provide a list of sources.
The Originality.ai Fact Checker makes referencing sources a breeze. When you run a fact-checking scan, it provides a source, so you can conveniently review the source material and verify your content before publishing it.
Last but not least, when picking a fact checker tool, look for a tool with best-in-class user experience, like Originality.ai. The Originality.ai fact checker is user friendly and intuitive to use.
Simply copy and paste or import text from a document or URL into the Content Scanner, then select, fact-check, and run your scan. When the scan is complete, it will produce a report with sources that you can further review.
Choosing an automated fact checker is an important step in publishing content with authenticity, transparency, and integrity.
Although AI tools like ChatGPT have been trained with a huge amount of data, they still face difficulty when trying to verify information that’s recent due to knowledge cut-off dates.
Instead, opt for a real-time fact checker with an exceptional user experience that priortizes transparency by showing you the sources so you can conveniently cross-reference facts.
Interested in learning more about fact-checking?