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CSIR asks partners to join fight against AI misinformation

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The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) wants a coordinated network of partners to counter AI-driven fake content before the coming elections. Avi Moodley, its acting research group leader, spoke at a virtual media roundtable on Wednesday.

Moodley leads the CSIR's work on natural language processing and is a principal AI specialist. He said the challenge is enormous and that organisations cannot address it in isolation. The Government Communication and Information System helped host the roundtable.

Moodley said a flood of content has created an environment not seen in earlier elections to this extent. He said it is likely to grow in future. In his words: "You do not know what is real and what is AI-generated."

He described the CSIR's election monitoring process and two tools. The Informed Fake News Advisor Project could benefit fact-checkers, but Moodley said it is still a work in progress. He said the audio search technology could be a game-changer for multimodal content.

Key facts

Who
Avi Moodley (CSIR Acting Research Group Leader for Natural Language Processing (NLP) and…); Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (hosted the media roundtable and called for partners); Government Communication and Information System (partner in hosting the media roundtable)
What
At a virtual media roundtable on Wednesday, CSIR Acting Research Group Leader Avi Moodley called for partners to join a coordinated network against misinformation, and described the CSIR's election monitoring process and its Informed Fake News Advisor Project and audio search technology.
When
28 October 2026
Where
South Africa, SADC
Status
Reported

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