$7.5 Million Grant to Guard Against AI-Driven Misinformation

$7.5 million grant to guard against AI-driven misinformation: IU News 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 


 

 

 
 

 

 

 
 $7.5 million grant to guard against AI-driven misinformation

 
 
 IU researchers to lead multidisciplinary team studying the psychological influence of online communications developed with artificial intelligence
 



 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 For Immediate Release 
 
 
 Sep 4, 2024
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana University researchers will lead a multi-institutional team of experts in areas such as informatics, psychology, communications and folklore to assess the role that artificial intelligence may play in strengthening the influence of online communications — including misinformation and radicalizing messages — under a $7.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 YY Ahn. Photo by Anna Powell Denton, Indiana University 

 
 The project is one of 30 recently funded by the department’s Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative, which supports basic defense-related research projects.

 
 “The deluge of misinformation and radicalizing messages poses significant societal threat,” said lead investigator Yong-Yeol Ahn , a professor in the IU Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering in Bloomington. “Now, with AI, you’re introducing the potential ability to mine data about individual people and quickly generate targeted messages that appeal to them — applying big data to individuals — which could cause even greater disruptions than we’ve already experienced.”

 
 The insights from the research — on the interplay between AI, social media and online misinformation — could potentially equip the government to counter foreign influence on campaigns and radicalization, he said.

 
 The five-year effort will unite experts across a wide range of disciplines, including psychology and cognitive science; communications; folklore and storytelling; artificial intelligence and natural language processing; complex systems and network science; and neurophysiology. The six IU researchers on the project, all from the Luddy School, are also affiliated with IU’s Observatory on Social Media . Other collaborators include a media expert at Boston University, a psychologist at Stanford University and a computational folklorist at the University of California at Berkeley.

 
 Specifically, Ahn said, the project will investigate the role of a sociological concept called “resonance” on people’s receptiveness to certain messages. This refers to the idea that people’s opinions are influenced more strongly by material that resonates with them through emotional content or narrative framing that appeals to existing beliefs or cognitive biases, such as political ideology, religious convictions or cultural norms.

 
 Resonance can be used to create messages that bridge gaps between groups, as well as fuel greater polarization, Ahn added. However, AI’s ability to rapidly g

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