AI Wrote Articles for Website for Months and ‘No One Noticed’
“Social media users recently took to Twitter to discuss their shock at finding out about the AI writers.”
by Quratulain Tejani
via The Sun
A POPULAR news outlet has been publishing articles written by AI since November, keeping it on the down low.
Tech media site CNET has been publishing the articles since November, and lots of readers don’t seem to have noticed.
“What is a credit card charge-off?” was the first AI-written article, published on November 11 by CNET Money.
The portal has reportedly churned out and published 73 AI-generated articles since then, reports Futurism.
“This article was created using an AI engine and reviewed, fact-checked, and edited by our editorial staff,” reads a note on the website under the headline, date and author/editor credits.
The publication mentioned on its website that it doesn’t compromise on its journalistic integrity and that a team of editors is involved in the editorial process “from ideation to publication.”
Ironically, Jackson Ryan, a reporter for the tech and news site wrote an article on the website last month where he said that journalism jobs are safe from being pounced on by technology when talking about ChatGPT and artificial intelligence.
“It definitely can’t do the job of a journalist,” Ryan wrote of ChatGPT. “To say so diminishes the act of journalism itself.”
Social media users recently took to Twitter to discuss their shock at finding out about the AI writers.
One person said: “I’ll admit I was quite taken aback to see that CNET is now publishing entire articles generated by AI — a grim inflection point in an already-bleak job market for journalists.”
“The quality and structure of those articles is atrocious,” added another.
The applications of artificial intelligence have taken the tech industry by storm but media outlets are exploiting it to the fullest.
Associated Press was one of the pioneers of applying AI to its newsroom and boasts about leveraging the technology on its website.
“Today, we use machine learning along key points in our value chain, including gathering, producing, and distributing the news.”
In the 2020 elections, The Washington Post used artificial intelligence for live campaign updates on their podcasts.
Quratulain Tejani
The Sun
