Urban legends and wild stories have always driven people to sites like Snopes to separate fact from fiction. Now, Snopes has introduced a new AI tool called FactBot, designed to help with exactly that. Whether you’re trying to settle a bet about Bigfoot or check out a claim about a celebrity, FactBot is here to help you get to the truth. Its main goal is to combat misinformation by using Snopes’ extensive archive and AI technology to answer questions quickly, without having to sift through endless articles the old-fashioned way.
When you ask FactBot something, it searches through Snopes’ database and generates a user-friendly, conversational response. This tool was built using Anthropic’s Sonnet 3.5 AI model, with the collaboration of California Polytechnic’s Digital Transformation Hub (DxHub) and Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Of course, AI tools are known to sometimes come up with confusing or outright false information—what’s called “hallucinating.” To avoid that, Snopes made sure FactBot sticks to its own database, ensuring that it only pulls verified information, which helps avoid outdated or incorrect answers. Every response from FactBot also includes links to the original articles it used for reference. And if there isn’t enough information to answer your question, FactBot will simply let you know, instead of making something up.
Snopes sees FactBot as a tool not only for helping users but also for speeding up the work of its own newsroom. FactBot can highlight trending topics based on what users are asking about, giving the Snopes team fresh ideas for new stories. According to Snopes CEO Chris Richmond, this tool helps them keep an eye on internet and social media trends more efficiently by adding the chatbot’s data to their traditional methods of tracking story ideas and questions from users.
Snopes isn’t the only organization jumping on the AI bandwagon for fact-checking. The Washington Post has developed its own chatbot called Climate Answers, which relies on the paper’s climate reporting to respond to questions. These AI tools are just the beginning, and as AI continues to evolve, we’re likely to see even more ways they can help make the internet a more trustworthy place by tackling the constant flow of misinformation, hoaxes, and rumors.
