At the International Journalism Festival 2023 in Perugia, I (Jochen Spangenberg, the author of this article) also had the opportunity to interview Maarten Schenk, co-founder of Belgian fact-checking outlet Lead Stories. Maarten is extremely active in the field of debunking of mis-/disinformation and always eager to advance fact-checking both on the content as well as technological level, bringing in new ideas and approaches.
As I did in my previous interview with Nic Newman of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, I also asked Maarten about his views on how Artificial Intelligence will impact the production as well as the spreading of disinformation. In particular, I wanted to know from Maarten what he thought generative AI and recent as well as future advancements mean for fact-checkers like him.
To start with, Maarten said that he expects “an increase in high quality fake news and deep fakes” in the period ahead, while - as a result - he imagines that there will be “much more demand for fact-checking”.
Find out in the short video clip below what else Maarten sees on the horizon and in which way Artificial Intelligence can also help in countering disinformation at the same time (such as “reducing some of the boring tasks”).
Author and interviewer: Jochen Spangenberg
Date of interview / recording: 22 April 2023