Brazil’s Aos Fatos’ Director of Innovation on Creating Bots that Tackle Misinformation and More Imaginative Ways of Using AI in Journalism

In a new episode of AI-FLUENT, I am talking to Bruno Fávero, a journalist who became Director of Innovation at one of Brazil's leading fact-checking websites Aos Fatos.

They developed their own bots that tackle misinformation and tools that not only document digital lies and hate but also how the "distorted algorithms" of apps and platforms contributed to their spread.

So, what can we all learn from Aos Fatos' business model with its focus on tech and fact-checking?

Main Things We've Discussed:

• How to become a Director of Innovation without a tech background
• Apart from investment in tech, what else contributes to Aos Fatos' success
• Aos Fatos' business model and how they create their own tech products
• "We create tools to solve a specific problem, not for the sake of creating a new tool"
• What the Fatima bot is and how it helps to fight misinformation
• What kind of relationship Aos Fatos has with its audience
• How they try to reach out to Gen Z
• The word "innovation" and how it has become empty
• A new tool to fact-check live events/debates, etc.
• Distorted algorithms and Aos Fatos' project called Golpeflix
• Social media platforms, how they became unhealthy and how journalists can navigate them to distribute quality journalism
• How the perception of facts and truth has changed in Brazil in recent years
• How the media industry took people's trust for granted and now needs to earn it by being more transparent and diligent
• Relationships with Meta and other Big Tech companies: liability, yet necessity? Can these relationships be re-negotiated?
• How social media has contributed to the loss of trust in professional journalists
• The biggest challenge Aos Fatos faces as a newsroom and Bruno as a Director of Innovation, and what the solutions to those challenges are
• The biggest misconception of generative AI in the context of journalism/storytelling
• Ways to use generative AI more creatively - creation of new user interfaces might be one of them
• A lifehack from Bruno on how to use smaller generative AI models
• The future of journalism