Jeff Hancock
Also known as Jeffrey T. Hancock
Jeff Hancock studies deception at Stanford University, and his work now includes AI-generated text. He earned a psychology degree at the University of Victoria and a PhD at Dalhousie University in 2002, then taught at Cornell before joining Stanford in 2015 to found the Stanford Social Media Lab. In 2011 he co-wrote a study of deceptive opinion spam, and in 2021 the Association for Computational Linguistics gave the paper a Test-of-Time Paper Award. In 2020 he and co-authors defined AI-mediated communication, and in 2023 a study with collaborators found that people identified AI text with only 50–52% accuracy. As of October 2026, he is the founding director of the Tech Impact and Policy Center at Stanford.
- Now at
- Stanford University and Freeman Spogli Institute
- Works
- 374
- Citations
- 24,778
- h-index
- 76
Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 15 October 2026.
Timeline
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1996–2015
From Dalhousie to Stanford
He earns a psychology degree at the University of Victoria in 1996 and a PhD at Dalhousie University in 2002. From 2002 to 2015 he teaches information science and communication at Cornell University. In 2015 he joins Stanford University as a professor and founds the Stanford Social Media Lab.
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2011
Detecting deceptive opinion spam
In 2011 he co-writes a study of deceptive opinion spam, meaning fictitious opinions written to sound authentic. The study's classifier is nearly 90% accurate on its gold-standard opinion spam dataset.
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September 2012
A TEDxWinnipeg talk
In September 2012 he gives a TEDxWinnipeg talk called The future of lying. He argues that the searchability and permanence of online information may keep people honest.
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2020
Defining AI-mediated communication
In 2020 he publishes, with Mor Naaman and Karen Levy, a definition of AI-mediated communication in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. The definition describes interpersonal communication in which an intelligent agent operates on behalf of a communicator.
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2021
A Test-of-Time paper award
The Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) honors the 2011 paper with a 2021 Test-of-Time Paper Award. Its authors are Myle Ott, Yejin Choi, Claire Cardie and Jeff Hancock.
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March 2023
Spotting AI-written text
A study with his collaborators, reported by Stanford HAI in March 2023, finds that people distinguish human from AI text with only 50–52% accuracy, about the same as a coin flip. He warns that AI could be tuned to pass as more human than people.
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November 2024–January 2025
A court declaration excluded
In November 2024 he files a declaration defending Minnesota's 2023 law on election deepfakes, and two of its 15 citations cannot be found. By January 2025 the judge excludes his expert testimony, finding that the declaration's errors undermine its competence and credibility.
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As of October 2026
Founding director of a Stanford center
As of October 2026, he is the founding director of the Tech Impact and Policy Center, which is part of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute. The center's research explores social technology and AI.
Sources and credits
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- Jeffrey T. Hancock - Wikipedia
- Jeff Hancock | FSI
- Jeff Hancock Named Co-Director of the Cyber Policy Center and FSI Senior Fellow
- [1107.4557] Finding Deceptive Opinion Spam by Any Stretch of the Imagination
- Jeff Hancock: The future of lying | TED Talk
- AI-Mediated Communication: Definition, Research Agenda, and Ethical Considerations
- ACL Test-of-Time Papers Award Recipients - Admin Wiki
- Was this written by a human or AI? | Stanford HAI
- Stanford misinformation expert accused of using AI to fabricate court statement
- Expert on AI Submits Court Declaration with Fake AI Citations: Cybersecurity Trends
- The Tech Impact & Policy Center | FSI