Milner Lecture: How to spot and debunk misleading content

The Milner Award and Lecture 2025 is awarded to Professor Iryna Gurevych for her major contributions to natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence that combine deep understanding of human language and cognitive faculty with the latest paradigms in machine learning.

Abstract: Misleading content is hard to spot — and equally dangerous to humans who consume it and to generative AI that might amplify it. Examples of such misleading content include false claims on social media supported by the misuse of credible scientific publications, images or videos taken out of their original context and paired with false narratives, and misleading charts designed to persuade audiences to accept inaccurate statements. How can we identify and debunk misleading claims? This talk will educate the audience on the tactics used to create deceptive content and demonstrate how the latest advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence can be applied to protect both people and machines from misinformation.

Iryna Gurevych is a leading voice in AI and natural language processing, recognized as a Fellow of both the ACL and ELLIS, an ERC Advanced Grant awardee, a member of several global science academies, and winner of the prestigious Milner Award of the Royal Society. She is Professor of Computer Science at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, and also serves as an adjunct professor at MBZUAI in the UAE and INSAIT in Bulgaria. As the first ever LOEWE Chair of Excellence and Distinguished Professor at the National Center for Cybersecurity ATHENE, she brings together a deep understanding of human language and the latest breakthroughs in machine learning. Her groundbreaking work has shaped emerging fields such as large language models, human-AI collaboration, argument mining and misinformation detection, revolutionizing the way how both people and machines navigate an increasingly complex information landscape.

Attending in person

Doors will open to the public at 6.00pm BST for those with an advance in-person ticket.

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Attending live online

The lecture will be livestreamed on the Royal Society YouTube channel, please register for tickets to gain access to this link.

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