March 16-18, 2021 • Online
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Countering Misinformation with AI and Human Language Technology
An MIT study of tweets found that “falsehood diffuses significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth, in all categories of information, and in many cases by an order of magnitude.” The speed of AI is the only way to keep up with detecting, fact-checking and tagging cascades of misinformation.
Augmenting human efforts with the speed of AI is the only way to keep up with detecting, fact-checking and tagging cascades of misinformation. Second, tracking the flow of known misinformation as it spreads and gets repackaged and altered.
HLTCon includes insightful talks on human language technology and AI advances to combat misinformation and disinformation, as well as issues of data quality for training models and new technologies that are tackling old problems in new ways.
* The event will be recorded and can be viewed for a limited time after the event, so if you are unable to make it live, please register to receive the link to the recording.
Day 1: Ensuring Training Data Quality
March 16, 2021 • 11 AM – 1 PM ET
KEYNOTE: Doug Reynolds
Day 2: Combating Misinformation
March 17, 2021 • 11 AM – 1 PM ET
KEYNOTE: Joe Campbell & Danelle Shah
Day 3: New Capabilities for the Mission
March 18, 2021 • 11 AM – 1 PM ET
KEYNOTE: Zeynep Tufekci
Featured Speakers
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Zeynep Tufekci
Professor and Writer
University of North Carolina, New York Times and the Atlantic
Professor and Writer
University of North Carolina, New York Times and the Atlantic
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Doug Reynolds
Technical Director, VISTA Research
DoD
Technical Director, VISTA Research
DoD
![](https://www.hltcon.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/01/Joe_Campbell.jpg)
Joe Campbell
Group Leader, AI Technology & Systems Group
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Group Leader, AI Technology & Systems Group
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
![](https://www.hltcon.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/01/Danelle-Shah.jpg)
Danelle Shah
Asst Group Leader, AI Technology & Systems Group
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Asst Group Leader, AI Technology & Systems Group
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
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Dr. Catherine Havasi
Chief Product Officer
Basis Technology
Chief Product Officer
Basis Technology
![](https://www.hltcon.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/02/farid-moussa-e1614800368404.jpg)
Farid Moussa
Senior Text Analytics Product Manager
Basis Technology
Senior Text Analytics Product Manager
Basis Technology
Agenda
Day 1: Ensuring Training Data Quality
March 16, 2021 • 11 AM – 1 PM EDT
KEYNOTE: Doug Reynolds
Human labor is the slowest link in the journey from an idea for machine augmentation of analysts to a real, effective NLP system. Human-annotation of training data for machine learning systems dwarfs the engineering model building on a scale of more than 20:1. NLP experts from government, industry, and MIT with experience in production-ready systems, will introduce new strategies and technologies that are drastically decreasing human labor while also increasing the quality of the end product. Continuous feedback empowers non-technical users to correct and increase the accuracy of deployed models.
Day 2: Combating Misinformation
March 17, 2021 • 11 AM – 1 PM EDT
KEYNOTE: Joe Campbell & Danelle Shah
Information Operations is a particularly timely area of intelligence work that leverages NLP over a variety of media and languages. Players in disinformation are more elusive and difficult to address head-on, creating gaps in intelligence whether they represent misinformation or InfoOps players. Speakers will discuss the problem space of “you don’t know what you don’t know” to set the stage for day three of HLTCon.
Day 3: New Capabilities for the Mission
March 18, 2021 • 11 AM – 1 PM EDT
KEYNOTE: Zeynep Tufekci
New NLP technology making progress towards solving the age-old intelligence problem: “How do you discover that which you don’t know to look for?” Event extraction can reveal patterns of actions involving players that were previously under the radar. What if a machine augmented intelligence gathering workflow that collected data on known persons of interest, also tracked peripheral yet-unknown persons (“ghosts”) to eventually build up full identity profiles? Learn how NLP is bringing the theoretical to life.
Day 3 BONUS: Virtual Spy Museum Tour
Join the team from Basis Technology on a tour of the International Spy Museum! Infiltrate the museum collections from the safety of your own home. This tour will blend captivating storytelling with videos, gadgets, and activities.