Information School Assistant Professor Jevin West and Biology Professor Carl Bergstrom went on a pair of local radio shows recently to discuss their 鈥淐alling Bullshit鈥 class.
On with Bill Radke, West discussed 鈥渇ake news鈥 and encouraged media consumers to watch out for things that sound 鈥渢oo good to be true.鈥
鈥淲e ask the students to question their source: Who鈥檚 telling me this? How do they know it? And what do they have to gain from it?鈥 West said.
Radke asked which is developing faster: society鈥檚 ability to produce fake news or its ability to identify it.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 exactly why we developed this class,鈥 West said. 鈥淚 work in the area of data science and machine learning, and everyone鈥檚 got an idea on how to fight fake news with technology, and I鈥檓 sorry but that is a tough, tough task for AI.鈥 The spirit of the class, he said, is to inform people how to be better at filtering information, and that鈥檚 an area where educators can help.
West and Bergstrom also appeared on KIRO radio鈥檚 morning news show with Dave Ross. They discussed how charts and graphs can be used to manipulate data, and how people can be taught how to spot misinformation.
鈥淥ur exercise is not meant to tell everyone that everything is (false or misleading) 鈥 that鈥檚 giving up,鈥 West said. 鈥淲hat we鈥檝e got to do is show people that there is a right answer, and you can find it.鈥
Read about the KIRO appearance and listen to the broadcast at .