Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The SIFT method (Stop, Investigate, Find, Trace) is a fact-checking approach developed by Mike Caulfield. It provides a structured framework for evaluating online information and claims. Here's a summary of each step:

S - Stop: Before sharing or believing information, pause and consider your emotional response. Consider if you have enough background knowledge to assess the claim.
I - Investigate: Check the source or claim by looking at the website, author, or organization. Question their credibility and potential biases.
F - Find: Search for other trusted coverage of the claim or topic. Look for fact-checks from reliable organizations and consensus among experts.
T - Trace: Track claims back to their original source. Determine if anything was lost or distorted as information was shared and repeated across platforms.

This method helps combat misinformation created by AI hallucinations by systematic evaluation rather than immediate acceptance or rejection of claims.

When using artificial intelligence, it is important to evaluate the tool itself and the tool’s output critically. Ask yourself these questions:

• What is the purpose of the tool?
• How is this tool funded? Does the funding impact the credibility of the output?
• What, if any, ethical concerns do you have about this tool? 
• Does the tool ask you to upload existing content such as an image or paper? If so, are there copyright concerns? Is there a way to opt out of including your uploaded conent in the training corpus? 
• What is the privacy policy? 
• What corpus or data was used to train the tool or is the tool accessing? Consider how comprehensive the data set is (for example, does it consider paywalled information like that in library databases and electronic journals?), if it is current enough for your needs, any bias in the data set, and algorithmic bias.
• If reproducibility is important to your research, does the tool support it?
• Is the information the tool creates or presents credible? Because generative AI generates content as well as or instead of returning search results, it is important to read across sources to determine credibility.
• If any evidence is cited, are the citations real or "hallucinations" (made up citations - see the glossary).