With the interview format WHO IS BEHIND VERA.AI? we subsequently present the people who make up the project, their role within vera.ai as well as their views on challenges, trends and visions for the projects' outcomes.
I'm Akis Papadopoulos, coordinator of the vera.ai project. I am a Principal Researcher at CERTH-ITI in Thessaloniki, Greece and Head of the Media Analysis, Verification and Retrieval Group (MeVer). You can find me on google scholar profile and on Twitter.
I'm really scared of the blazing fast pace of advances in AI. Today's state-of-the-art can almost certainly be obsolete in a couple of months, if not sooner. This is especially true with generative AI models.
Coupled with the great asymmetry in resources (computational power, talent, capital) between big industrial players and the academic world, I am feeling a bit overwhelmed and concerned about whether we can build verification tools and services that are effective enough and relevant in the long run.
Thankfully, vera.ai brings together a lot of experts from different fields and backgrounds, and I am hoping that tapping into this multi-disciplinarity and breadth of inputs we can (at least partly) address the great disinformation challenges that lie ahead of us.
From a project partner's point of view, I'm hoping that the tools we are developing at MeVer will be significantly improved and upgraded to a level where they can be useful in the verification of the latest generative AI models (for images and videos).
Even more importantly, as project coordinator, my ambition is to tap into the full potential of the vera.ai consortium and contribute to a maximum impact of the results, meaning tools that are usable and useful for many fact-checkers and journalists across Europe and beyond, as well as high-impact methods and resources (e.g., papers, datasets) that will be openly accessible to the community.
I have to admit I'm a bit addicted to my Twitter timeline and occasionally to some Netflix series …
Author: Akis Papadopoulos (CERTH)
Editors: Anna Schild, Jochen Spangenberg (DW)