Ottawa funds AI project to combat misinformation at Université de Montréal

Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge was at the Université de Montréal (UdeM) on Monday to announce financial support for an artificial intelligence (AI) project designed to combat disinformation.

The university will receive $292,675 for its research project entitled “Une stratégie d’intelligence artificielle pour lutter contre la désinformation.”

The project, a partnership between UdeM, the Institut québécois d’intelligence artificielle (Mila) and McGill University, aims to develop a website capable of detecting and countering disinformation.

“We are developing an application that can be integrated into web browsers’ and that will be able to detect disinformation potentially by clicking on a text,” explained lead researcher Jean-François Godbout at a press conference. “The tool would detect disinformation ‘based on its corpus of knowledge, but also by consulting reliable sources before offering an assessment of the veracity of a text.”

When asked to define what would be considered a reliable source, Godbout stated that his team is in the process of drawing up a list of trustworthy sources.

“Government data could be considered reliable sources, press agencies, Radio-Canada, TVA, the National Post,” listed the researcher, adding that “we will base ourselves on a consensus in the social sciences, communications and journalistic studies to draw up a list of reliable sources”.

Before the next election

Minister St-Onge wants the tool to be ready before the next federal election, which will be held no later than October 2025.

“It is important for the government to support initiatives by credible organizations such as the Université de Montréal and Mila, which are leading institutes in artificial intelligence and have taken strong positions on the ethical development of artificial intelligence,” said St-Onge. “We can be pioneers in the development of AI and that we can do so responsibly.”

Funding comes from the Digital Citizenship Contribution Program, which provides more than $9 million for 27 projects.

A survey published on Monday by Abacus Data revealed that 84 per cent of Canadians are fairly or very concerned about the increase in misinformation and disinformation.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews