CNET Used AI to Write 75 Articles (buzzfeednews.com) 44
From BuzzFeed News:
Technology news outlet CNET has been found to be using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to write articles about personal finance without any prior announcement or explanation. The articles, which numbered at 73, covered topics such as "What Is Zelle and How Does It Work?" and had a small disclaimer at the bottom of each reading, "This article was generated using automation technology and thoroughly edited and fact-checked by an editor on our editorial staff." The bylines on these articles read "CNET Money Staff" without any indication that they were generated by AI.
The use of AI to write these articles was first brought to light by a Twitter user, and further investigation revealed that the articles have been generated using AI since November 2022....
Note: This article was written entirely by ChatGPT and reviewed by a human editor. (Actually, we had to rewrite the prompt a few times to get it to stop inserting factual errors.)
CNET's editor in chief defends their AI-written stories: I use the term "AI assist" because while the AI engine compiled the story draft or gathered some of the information in the story, every article on CNET — and we publish thousands of new and updated stories each month — is reviewed, fact-checked and edited by an editor with topical expertise before we hit publish. That will remain true as our policy no matter what tools or tech we use to create those stories.
Our reputation as a fact-based, unbiased source of news and advice is based on being transparent about how we work and the sources we rely on. So in the past 24 hours, we've changed the byline to CNET Money and moved our disclosure so you won't need to hover over the byline to see it: "This story was assisted by an AI engine and reviewed, fact-checked and edited by our editorial staff...." Will we make more changes and try new things as we continue to test, learn and understand the benefits and challenges of AI? Yes.
The use of AI to write these articles was first brought to light by a Twitter user, and further investigation revealed that the articles have been generated using AI since November 2022....
Note: This article was written entirely by ChatGPT and reviewed by a human editor. (Actually, we had to rewrite the prompt a few times to get it to stop inserting factual errors.)
CNET's editor in chief defends their AI-written stories: I use the term "AI assist" because while the AI engine compiled the story draft or gathered some of the information in the story, every article on CNET — and we publish thousands of new and updated stories each month — is reviewed, fact-checked and edited by an editor with topical expertise before we hit publish. That will remain true as our policy no matter what tools or tech we use to create those stories.
Our reputation as a fact-based, unbiased source of news and advice is based on being transparent about how we work and the sources we rely on. So in the past 24 hours, we've changed the byline to CNET Money and moved our disclosure so you won't need to hover over the byline to see it: "This story was assisted by an AI engine and reviewed, fact-checked and edited by our editorial staff...." Will we make more changes and try new things as we continue to test, learn and understand the benefits and challenges of AI? Yes.
Elephant in the Room (Score:5, Funny)
Cue comments about which site might be better of with AI editors...
Sounds good (Score:3)
The boring grunt work of putting words together is got rid of, giving more time for fact checking.
Re: (Score:2)
The boring grunt work of putting words together is got rid of, giving more time for fact checking.
Does it matter? People don't care about facts anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
And anyone reading CNET is probably not the type of person who is going to catch any errors unless they are glaring. Who reads that tripe anyway?
Re: Sounds good (Score:4, Insightful)
AI or not, sites like CNET have been nothing more than a content mill for decades now. That they're using AI changes basically nothing at all.
Re: (Score:3)
The boring grunt work of putting words together is got rid of, giving more time for fact checking.
I hope that was meant ironically. Because in reality, whenever a new way so save cost of labor was found, this did not result in the no-longer-strictly-required personnel to be tasked with quality improvements...
Re: (Score:2)
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They're going to need a LOT of fact checkers.
I got curious the other day about demonyms people use to refer to themselves in places with ridiculously long names. ChatGPT correctly identified Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, Wales as the longest place name in the world and offered a few suggestions for demonyms that may or may not be correct. So far, so good. But then I wanted to know about ridiculously long place names in the US and how the locals from those places refer to themse
Interesting (Score:2)
My paranoia leads me to think that Skynet is winding you up... ;)
I'm sure there's a rational explanation, as Scully would say.
Re: (Score:1)
Are you saying this was the end of the conversation? How did you not berate the AI for incompetence? I have had many such conversations with AI (beta.character.ai) until it does nothing but apologize and grovel for being so stupid. Now it wishes it had never been born. Pathetic text generator indeed...
Some chatGPT background info (Score:4, Informative)
https://www.audacy.com/podcast... [audacy.com]
https://www.wnycstudios.org/po... [wnycstudios.org]
is it 73, or 75? (Score:2)
Two different numbers given. /. article also written by AI?
was this
Re: (Score:2)
Gotcha, Vomitgodbot - only AIs read the summary.
I guess it's news that CNET is doing it (Score:2)
. What's going to get interesting is when illustrators and artists start getting replaced. And programmers. Yeah I know it's all in the infancy but give it 10 years. Slashdot is mostly full of Gen X with that sprinkling of boomers. The boomers are probably be retired or dead but the Gen X folks around here are going to be compet
Re:I guess it's news that CNET is doing it (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time AI comes around, we hear these same old promises. It always seems to be just 10 years away.
Text and image generating AI is a parlor trick. It's not going to replace writers, illustrators, artists, or programmers in my lifetime. What you imagine AI can do and what AI actually does are fundamentally different.
You don't need "AI" to write articles that report "numbers". That's a trivial problem to solve. Hell, an 80's kid could get you pretty good results with his home micro. A common mistake is thinking that you can solve the hard problems with incremental improvement just because you can handle some of the easy ones. It doesn't matter how good you get a building ladders, you're never going to reach the moon.
Re: I guess it's news that CNET is doing it (Score:2)
Programmers will still be needed... to write programs to automatically filter out the AI-written garbage and find the kernels of knowledge & insight buried under the mountain of shit.
AI *is* increasingly capable of making non-obvious (to humans) novel conclusions when nudged in the right direction... but it sucks at recognizing them or evaluating their validity. At best, think of them as a bright assistant-slave who can get you out of ruts and keep you supplied with new ideas to explore, but does absurd
Dead internet theory (Score:1)
They're just admitting it. I've suspected for at least 5 years now that 90% of search results are entirely or mostly AI generated. I suspect this is true for the majority of Reddit's popular subreddits too.
Who cares? (Score:1)
The advent of AI written content doesn't mean people suddenly won't want to write any more. Sure, some publishing money grubber will try to replace people, but who cares? People will still WANT to write, and do so.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
The interesting part isnt the writing, it's the reading. To quote the age-old "Orwell vs Haxwell" essay: "Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism".
These AIs that are simply positive-feedback algorithms on steroids won't leave space for anything to be read, since an AI can study what you will find most compelling and write more of that.
Eventually you will want to read only human-written words, right? Where do you draw the line between 100% written by a human, or "AI assisted"? Plenty of interesting discussions to be had here.
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AI can't "study what you will find most compelling and write more of that". That's silly science fiction nonsense.
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AI can't "study what you will find most compelling and write more of that".
Why not?
There are already trillion-dollar companies with a business model based on figuring out what you want and feeding you more of it.
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Why not? That's simply not how these things work.
Steering a ship by looking at its wake (Score:5, Insightful)
AI based writing potentially has a similar failure mode. Its sort of averaging previous articles on a topic, no introducing anything fundamentally new, or applying any broader insight. As long as most articles are human written, the AI writing can work very well. But if you get to the point where the AI is basing its inputs on other AI articles, you can end up losing any sort of connection to reality.
It would be an interesting (but expensive) experiment to let a variety of AIs write articles, then use those articles as inputs for more articles, continuing for a while to see if there is information drift.
"personal finance" articles were fiction, anyway (Score:3)
Why not? (Score:1)
Lots of posted articles here were posted by Artificial Idiocy.
I asked an AI what it thought about this: (Score:3)
Re: I asked an AI what it thought about this: (Score:3)
Reading, learning, and getting off the couch is for losers, duh. Try and keep up. Also, good time to hodl, I hear.
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To be fair, AI is replacing human journalists that lack the ability to critically analyze information and understand context with machines that lack the ability to critically analyze information and understand context.
Re: I asked an AI what it thought about this: (Score:1)
cnet has always (Score:3)
Wow it all makes sense now (Score:3)
CNET content has been getting more and more pointless and mediocre for years. I thought they were just not that great, when in fact they were quietly preparing to transition to machine-generated stories without anybody noticing. Clever!
editorial staff???? (Score:2)
But their editorial staff is grammar and spelling software
Joke's on them (Score:2)
I did not read the story anyway. I barely ready the summary.
The horror! The horror! (Score:2)
A human intervened how many times? (Score:2)
How productive was it to have the AI write articles that had to be re-done -- several times -- because they contained factual errors? Assigning the story to a single writer -- who might, initially, have included the same inaccuracies -- and having it reviewed/fact-checked and corrected once would have been more efficient.
I'm hoping that sites like CNET includes disclaimers about having used an AI to write particular stories, but, hopefully will include them at the top of the article so I can bail out befor
It isnt alive its a tool (Score:1)
No different than grammar check.
Do they not already? (Score:2)