CNN Criticizes Microsoft's 'Making a Mess of the News' By Replacing MSN's Staff With AI (cnn.com) 74
CNN decries "false and bizarre" news stories being published by Microsoft on MSN.com, "one of the world's most trafficked websites and a place where millions of Americans get their news every day."
Microsoft's decision to increasingly rely on the use of automation and artificial intelligence over human editors to curate its homepage appears to be behind the site's recent amplification of false and bizarre stories, people familiar with how the site works told CNN.
The site, which comes pre-loaded as the default start page on devices running Microsoft software, including on Microsoft's latest "Edge" browser... employed more than 800 editors in 2018 to help select and curate news stories shown to millions of readers around the world. But in recent years Microsoft has laid off editors, some of whom were told they were being replaced by "automation," what they understand to be AI.
CNN points out that while Microsoft's president "has publicly lectured on the responsible use" of AI, "the apparent role of AI in Microsoft's recent amplification of bogus stories raises questions about the company's public adoption of the nascent technology and for the journalism industry as a whole." CNN notes that an AI-generated poll urging readers to guess the cause of a swimmer's death "was not the first public blunder caused by Microsoft's embrace of AI." In September Microsoft republished a story about Brandon Hunter, a former NBA player who died unexpectedly at the age of 42, under the headline, "Brandon Hunter useless at 42." Then, in October, Microsoft republished an article that claimed that San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston had resigned from his position after criticism from Elon Musk. The story was entirely false.
Some of the articles featured by Microsoft were initially published by obscure websites that might have gone unnoticed amid the daily deluge of online misinformation that circulates every day. But Microsoft's decision to republish articles from fringe outlets has elevated those stories to potentially millions of additional readers, breathing life into their claims. Editors who formerly worked for Microsoft told CNN that these kinds of false stories, or virtually any other articles from low-quality websites, would not be prominently featured by Microsoft were it not for its use of AI. Ryn Pfeuffer, who worked intermittently as a contractor for Microsoft for eight years, said she received a call in May 2020 with the news that her entire team was being laid off. 2020 was the year, a Microsoft spokesperson told CNN in a statement on Wednesday, that the company began transitioning to a "personalized feed" that is "tailored by an algorithm to the interests of our audiences."
MSN "has also published other junk content, including bogus stories about fishermen catching mermaids and Bigfoot spottings," reports the tech news site Futurism, "in the wake of ditching its human editors in favor of automation.
"Noticing a pattern yet? The company pumps out trash-tier AI content, then waits until it's called out publicly to quietly delete it and move onto the next trainwreck." We've known that Microsoft's MSN news portal has been pumping out a garbled, AI-generated firehose for well over a year now. The company has been using the website to distribute misleading and oftentimes incomprehensible garbage to hundreds of millions of readers per month... And if MSN presents a vision of how the tech industry's obsession with AI is going to play out in the information ecosystem, we're in for a rough ride.
CNN got this reaction from a user whose default browser changed from Chrome to Microsoft Edge after a software update — and discovered their home page had switched to MSN.com. "It felt like I was standing in line at the grocery store reading a National Enquirer front page."
A company spokesperson assured CNN that Microsoft was "committed to addressing the recent issue of low quality articles."
The site, which comes pre-loaded as the default start page on devices running Microsoft software, including on Microsoft's latest "Edge" browser... employed more than 800 editors in 2018 to help select and curate news stories shown to millions of readers around the world. But in recent years Microsoft has laid off editors, some of whom were told they were being replaced by "automation," what they understand to be AI.
CNN points out that while Microsoft's president "has publicly lectured on the responsible use" of AI, "the apparent role of AI in Microsoft's recent amplification of bogus stories raises questions about the company's public adoption of the nascent technology and for the journalism industry as a whole." CNN notes that an AI-generated poll urging readers to guess the cause of a swimmer's death "was not the first public blunder caused by Microsoft's embrace of AI." In September Microsoft republished a story about Brandon Hunter, a former NBA player who died unexpectedly at the age of 42, under the headline, "Brandon Hunter useless at 42." Then, in October, Microsoft republished an article that claimed that San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston had resigned from his position after criticism from Elon Musk. The story was entirely false.
Some of the articles featured by Microsoft were initially published by obscure websites that might have gone unnoticed amid the daily deluge of online misinformation that circulates every day. But Microsoft's decision to republish articles from fringe outlets has elevated those stories to potentially millions of additional readers, breathing life into their claims. Editors who formerly worked for Microsoft told CNN that these kinds of false stories, or virtually any other articles from low-quality websites, would not be prominently featured by Microsoft were it not for its use of AI. Ryn Pfeuffer, who worked intermittently as a contractor for Microsoft for eight years, said she received a call in May 2020 with the news that her entire team was being laid off. 2020 was the year, a Microsoft spokesperson told CNN in a statement on Wednesday, that the company began transitioning to a "personalized feed" that is "tailored by an algorithm to the interests of our audiences."
MSN "has also published other junk content, including bogus stories about fishermen catching mermaids and Bigfoot spottings," reports the tech news site Futurism, "in the wake of ditching its human editors in favor of automation.
"Noticing a pattern yet? The company pumps out trash-tier AI content, then waits until it's called out publicly to quietly delete it and move onto the next trainwreck." We've known that Microsoft's MSN news portal has been pumping out a garbled, AI-generated firehose for well over a year now. The company has been using the website to distribute misleading and oftentimes incomprehensible garbage to hundreds of millions of readers per month... And if MSN presents a vision of how the tech industry's obsession with AI is going to play out in the information ecosystem, we're in for a rough ride.
CNN got this reaction from a user whose default browser changed from Chrome to Microsoft Edge after a software update — and discovered their home page had switched to MSN.com. "It felt like I was standing in line at the grocery store reading a National Enquirer front page."
A company spokesperson assured CNN that Microsoft was "committed to addressing the recent issue of low quality articles."
"committed to addressing the recent issue..." (Score:2)
Oh, it's wrong all right (Score:1)
Its not wrong. An NBA player who is 42 is useless. A player who is dead is also useless.
It is wrong, as Hunter was not an NBA player at the time of his death, as his last game as an NBA player was in 2005, when he was 24 years old. 24 is most definitely not a "useless" age for an NBA player. Oh; also: *it's
Re: (Score:3)
Oh, sure, they're committing to it, but only by attempting to make the AI spout slightly less nonsense, not by hiring actual people!
Well if people had spouted less nonsense, or fairly portrayed various sides and not created a political information silo, then perhaps we wouldn't need the AI here.
Re: (Score:1)
Oh, sure, they're committing to it, but only by attempting to make the AI spout slightly less nonsense, not by hiring actual people!
Well if people had spouted less nonsense, or fairly portrayed various sides and not created a political information silo, then perhaps we wouldn't need the AI here.
As I'm reading your comment, you appear to be saying that it's not Microsoft's fault that all of that partisan, untrue propaganda content exists for it to mindlessly mine from. Is that your actual point?
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, sure, they're committing to it, but only by attempting to make the AI spout slightly less nonsense, not by hiring actual people!
Well if people had spouted less nonsense, or fairly portrayed various sides and not created a political information silo, then perhaps we wouldn't need the AI here.
As I'm reading your comment, you appear to be saying that it's not Microsoft's fault that all of that partisan, untrue propaganda content exists for it to mindlessly mine from. Is that your actual point?
What I am saying is that desperation for accurate info is in part what is driving the interest in AI. Most folks are not familiar with the concept of garbage in, garbage out. That is biased humans select biased data for training then AI will mere create disinformation faster than humans. Computers are not a magic bullet, they don't necessarily make things better.
What would make things better, probably a return to journalistic ethics. People always have biases, but an ethical rule set can accommodate that
Re: (Score:2)
Enshitification in progress...
Re: (Score:2)
CNN decries "false and bizarre" news stories (Score:2)
My first reaction: Wait, they finally started to watch their own channel?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
My first reaction: Wait, they finally started to watch their own channel?
Yes, like the time they said the January 6th insurrection "didn't appear to be violent" [thedailybeast.com] as Capitol police were being swarmed over, attacked with flag poles [cbsnews.com], beaten [cbsnews.com], and dragged into the crowds [nbcnews.com] to be attacked.
Oh wait. That wasn't CNN. That was the Fox tabloid.
Re:CNN decries "false and bizarre" news stories (Score:4, Informative)
Fox would probably argue that their contemporaneous reporting didn't have all the details that became available later.
What is CNN's excuse for the infamous "fiery but mostly peaceful protests" chyron running underneath a video of a building burning down?
Re: CNN decries "false and bizarre" news stories (Score:2)
They're both right, if you account for the people at BLM protests not starting fires. You can't write them out of the story. There were gigantic protests in many major cities all over the country, but we only talk about what happened after dark in a few of them.
And if you count all the people on the national mall there for a protest that didn't storm the Capitol. We only talk about the part that broke into the Capitol.
It doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about looting Nikes and starting dumpster fires, attacki
Can't conflate daytime protest with nighttime riot (Score:1, Troll)
They're both right, if you account for the people at BLM protests not starting fires.
NO. FULL STOP. You cannot conflate the people at the daytime protests with the people out at the nighttime rioting. Two very different groups with different agendas.
You can't write them out of the story. There were gigantic protests in many major cities all over the country, but we only talk about what happened after dark in a few of them.
No. We talk about both. However. when we talk about the rioting we falsely associate it with the daytime protests to minimize it, make people reluctant to criticize it. Its a tactic of the radical left to use the legit protests as cover.
And if you count all the people on the national mall there for a protest that didn't storm the Capitol. We only talk about the part that broke into the Capitol.
It doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about looting Nikes and starting dumpster fires, attacking police stations or attacking Congress to delay the electoral process, but the other side of the building where people were taking selfies with Capitol police is an important part of the story too.
The prosecution reveals the reality of Jan 6. Unlike the summer rioters that used BLM for cover and avoided in
Re: (Score:1)
... Its a tactic of the radical left to use the legit protests as cover.
Suggesting that peaceful protests (that, as you pointed out, happen in the daytime) are used to "cover" unrelated looting (that, as you pointed out, happen in the nighttime) is beyond ludicrous.
... but the other side of the building where people were taking selfies with Capitol police is an important part of the story too.
Are you seriously suggesting that the fact that some of those who followed to the crowd to the Capitol that day did not participate in the violent insurrection attempt has any kind of significance, and the lack of news coverage of those individuals means something? Because the vast majority of the American populatio
Re: (Score:2)
... Its a tactic of the radical left to use the legit protests as cover.
Suggesting that peaceful protests (that, as you pointed out, happen in the daytime) are used to "cover" unrelated looting (that, as you pointed out, happen in the nighttime) is beyond ludicrous.
Actually daytime protesters are literally used for cover for vandalism and provoking police, in the daytime. At night it's more of using the lingering protest atmosphere for greater mischief. If the protest atmosphere can be maintained into the night the police remain disrupted and have a more difficult time responding. An atmosphere of civil disorder attracts radicals. That's why you seem the arrests of so many out of towners when the atmosphere persists for days.
... but the other side of the building where people were taking selfies with Capitol police is an important part of the story too.
Are you seriously suggesting ...
No, you got the quote levels mixed up. The
Re: (Score:3)
C'mon, everyone knows Fox wouldn't have this level of self awareness. The joke just wouldn't work.
Social media focused ill informed (Score:2)
C'mon, everyone knows Fox wouldn't have this level of self awareness. The joke just wouldn't work.
Don't conflate the news shows with the commentary shows. All the networks have some good news show, its just gets drowned out by the commentary personalities. The straight news folks don't get posted to social media, only the commentary personalities, the latter is more entertaining. That leaves so many social media focused people ill informed.
More peaceful than most "mostly peaceful" protests (Score:1)
Yes, like the time they said the January 6th insurrection "didn't appear to be violent" [thedailybeast.com]
It was just another "mostly peaceful" protest, and by network "mostly peaceful" standards it was quite low on the violence scale. Look how few people were actually charged by the DOJ for violent offenses, a DOJ that is trying very hard to rightfully nail anyone's ass to the wall that was present Jan 6 for whatever they did, big or small.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe they don't like the competition.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
CNN had a respectable news channel until 2015. Then they decided to do nothing but political propaganda.
Re: (Score:2)
I'll date myself by admitting that I remember a time when cnn and fox were news operations, rather than parodies of one another . . .
hawk
Re: (Score:2)
Your UID already told us that you're old, gramps, no need to try to hide it.
Re: (Score:2)
Get off my lawn!
(or I'll send my grandchildren out on you!)
Re: (Score:1)
CNN had a respectable news channel until 2015. Then they decided to do nothing but political propaganda.
I would suggest that CNN jumped the shark when they allowed DJT to hold that Town Hall with nobody in the audience but Trump supporters and nobody attempting to fact-check or correct him in any real way.
Re: CNN decries "false and bizarre" news stories (Score:2)
I find your comment bizarre. CNN looks to be doing a better job than almost another at maintaining journalistic integrity. I feel like MSNBC and Fox are outlets for punditry and taking heads, but not CNN. Even the local Fox News programming can be pretty good. It's only at the national level that it Fox metastasizes.
If there is a better news source than CNN it might be AP or Reuters. Back in the day the Christian Science Monitor and Jane's Defense were great, but I don't have easy access to them. Are they s
Re: (Score:1)
My first reaction: Wait, they finally started to watch their own channel?
Please feel free to cite evidence of your suggestion that CNN publishes "false and "bizarre" stories as fits with the topic of this CNN article being discussed.
Re: (Score:2)
I admit, most of them are kinda funny [independent.co.uk].
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Sorry; just saw this reply.
1. CNN never reported the story as true; only as a rumor. They did report that Richard Steele claimed it was true, but did not corroborate.
2. The existence of the tape has never been conclusively proven or disproven. Does it sound fake? Sure. Should I believe it exists without evidence? I don't do that with the concept of a supernatural deity; I sure ain't gonna do it with a pee tape. Is it possible that it exists? A helluva lot more so than it is that the Judeo-Christian-Muslim
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Oh how I long for the old days where the news just, well, ran factual news
That time never existed. News outlets have always had bias. When too many of them say the exact same things you know something funny is going on. Today that thing is usually that they are owned by the same corporation.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Nah...while there were always quibbles of bias in the media with leanings from center, back in the 70s and early 80s it was mostly reporting facts, as they knew them at the time of reporting, and that was that - not the mid-to-far left/right crap we have nowadays.
No, the media was so biased in the 70s and early 80s that you simply never found out about all the crap that rich and powerful folks were doing.
Remember #metoo? That didn't break until recently, and that happened because "respectable" media outlets wouldn't report on well known powerful sexual predators. All those big corruption scoops of the 70s and 80s? That wasn't some amazing reporter rooting out the corruption, that was ever other reporter ignoring it because it would piss off the wrong people.
back then, the whole Hamas/Israel thing would have been reported as "Hamas TERRORISTS attacked Israel, murdering, kidnapping, and raping,
It was,
Re: (Score:3)
When too many of them say the exact same things you know something funny is going on.
That seems like an extremely dubious metric. Do you complain about math textbooks that all state 2+2=4?
Re: (Score:3)
That seems like an extremely dubious metric. Do you complain about math textbooks that all state 2+2=4?
The news never included only facts. It always included speculation about them, from the days of the crier. Only once you become familiar with the politics of a newspaper can you even know how to read it.
All the BS is now the new normal (Score:2)
Oh how I long for the old days where the news just, well, ran factual news
That time never existed. News outlets have always had bias.
They always had bias but they used to have professional ethics where they would make a token effort to portray the side they personally opposed. Now they view themselves as full fledged participants in events and professional advocates for one side or the other. They figured a way to make things even worse; Literally state TV and opposition TV depending on how the recent elections went.
And then Trump happened, and there was full on religious crusades. If a deep state had not existed it certainly created
Re: (Score:2)
That time never existed. News outlets have always had bias. When too many of them say the exact same things you know something funny is going on. Today that thing is usually that they are owned by the same corporation.
Neal Stephenson's prediction of this is on point (Score:4, Interesting)
“Early in the Reticulum—thousands of years ago—it became almost useless because it was cluttered with faulty, obsolete, or downright misleading information,” Sammann said.
“Crap, you once called it,” I reminded him.
“Yes—a technical term. So crap filtering became important. Businesses were built around it. Some of those businesses came up with a clever plan to make more money: they poisoned the well. They began to put crap on the Reticulum deliberately, forcing people to use their products to filter that crap back out. They created syndevs whose sole purpose was to spew crap into the Reticulum. But it had to be good crap.”
“What is good crap?” Arsibalt asked in a politely incredulous tone.
“Well, bad crap would be an unformatted document consisting of random letters. Good crap would be a beautifully typeset, well-written document that contained a hundred correct, verifiable sentences and one that was subtly false. It’s a lot harder to generate good crap. At first they had to hire humans to churn it out. They mostly did it by taking legitimate documents and inserting errors—swapping one name for another, say. But it didn’t really take off until the military got interested.”
“As a tactic for planting misinformation in the enemy’s reticules, you mean,” Osa said. “This I know about. You are referring to the Artificial Inanity programs of the mid–First Millennium A.R.”
“Exactly!” Sammann said. “Artificial Inanity systems of enormous sophistication and power were built for exactly the purpose Fraa Osa has mentioned. In no time at all, the praxis leaked to the commercial sector and spread to the Rampant Orphan Botnet Ecologies. Never mind. The point is that there was a sort of Dark Age on the Reticulum that lasted until my Ita forerunners were able to bring matters in hand.”
Stephenson, Neal. Anathem (pp. 895-896). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
MSN Was Crap Before (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
When it showed up by the system tray on my work computer it didn't take long to figure out that it was just a little hate machine designed to piss you off the more you look at it.
Probably Time to Stop Using MSN (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I attempt to average the Automatic Earth with Google news.
The Big Picture has a news section that reliably tells you the Bloomberg point of view.
I agree it's really hard getting through the narratives to figure out what is really going on.
Re: (Score:1)
But of course! (Score:1)
We're living in the Fakocene - get with the times.
I thought I was just having a stroke... guess not (Score:2)
Copyright? Liability? (Score:2)
Does AI news have the same protections as new written by a human? There is a very high bar to sue a journalist for libel. So in this brave new world does MSN open themselves up to lawsuits with few journalistic protections, or how does this all work now?
Is Microsoft Good At *Anything*? (Score:3, Insightful)
Can't make OSes that aren't just fronts for Datamining.
Can't make Application Software that doesn't charge Users "Rent" forever.
Can't make a Computer that is even worthy of Criticism.
Can't make a Mobile OS that anyone wants.
Can't make an App Store, period.
Can't understand how Humans work. See, Replacing Human Editors with AI, Discontinuing XBox Membership Benefit, even though it is nearly zero-cost to the Company. Foisting nearly continuous and arbitrary UI changes on Users of their OS and Application Software.
And now: Can't even manage a News Site!
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You know what they say: "The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck is the day they make a vacuum cleaner."
Exactly!
Re: (Score:2)
And now: Can't even manage a News Site!
If CNN really cared about the problem, maybe perhaps they could offer microsoft some sort of deal to include CNN's amazing news article titles within bings results along with a link to CNN...
But you know, without the hundred million dollars per month fee.
I'd say so long as CNN is going to make it prohibitively expensive and illegal to even so much as *mention* their own bits of news, they really have no right to bitch where others end up getting their content from.
Riiight, Coward.
Or, rather, Riiight, Clippy!
One possible solution... (Score:3)
...would be for writers to create a nonprofit organization that sets up guidelines for "ethically sourced" journalism, e.g. "No AI was used in the writing process", "the person who wrote this article was paid a fair wage", "the writer and publisher do not have any conflicts of interest which might create bias". The organization could then award a trademarked certification to news sites/newspapers/etc that follow the guidelines. If you break a guideline, you get your seal of approval revoked.
This would address a very real market need. I know that I, for one, would start exclusively reading certified news sites, if the idea was implemented properly. I also think it would be easy to find qualified journalists/writers in general who would volunteer to help run the organization.
You probably would encounter some debates about the guidelines. (For example: is it OK to use AI to help research your article, as long as you don't use it to actually write the article? What is a "fair wage"? Should there be exceptions to the fair-wage rule, for blogs and so on?) It would be the job of the nonprofit to sort through these issues. You could also create a system of multiple certifications-- for instance, a news platform might be certified "AI-free" but not "fair wage".
If you use MSN, just block clickbait sources. (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
the bright side (Score:2)
let's look at the bright side.
At least now we know where MS Windows came from . . .
now if only we can find the SF story in which a blue screen was used instead of the computer functioning properly . . .
Re: (Score:1)
At least now we know where MS Windows came from . . .
We always knew where Windows came from; it was a copy of OS/2, just like MSDOS was a copy of IBMDOS.
Microsoft is abusing its users (Score:1)
I'm having to use MS Edge for work, and every time I open a new tab... boom, there's MSN, and a bunch of crazy trash it calls news. Microsoft can be such a sleazy company. I shouldn't have to install a damn extension to customize the default page for a new tab.
Re: (Score:3)
Just open a new tab and then open Page Settings (the gear in the top right).
Set:
Quick Links - Show Promoted Links = Off
Content = Content Off
Done.
Then do that again every time MS Edge gets updated, because it's Microsoft.
Re: (Score:2)
That's better than nothing, but your solution is to customize content on a Microsoft web site that I never want to visit. Is there a way to change which URL is loaded without installing an extension? I would be fine with a default blank page.
Re: (Score:1)
That's better than nothing, but your solution is to customize content on a Microsoft web site that I never want to visit. Is there a way to change which URL is loaded without installing an extension? I would be fine with a default blank page.
When I set a custom New Tab page, the url I specify is ignored, and new tabs continue to load the MSN homepage.
Re: (Score:2)
It isn't customizing the web site. It is customizing MS Edge and the configuration of the browser's blank "new page".
There is no need to visit MSN. It's content just doesn't get loaded anymore in a new page.
I would be fine with a default blank page.
Yes, that is what you are setting up, a custom MS Edge layout that is blank for a new page.
So... it's less biased? (Score:1)
That's really what CNN and the bleating useless politicians are complaining about and the reason they want to regulate AI. They can currently control the message because none of the mainstream media is really reporting. They are editorializing. They ignore stories that don't fit the ideology or warp them so that the reader/viewer only sees the parts they want them to. It's the only reason they want to inject their ideology into AI. Here's a news flash: it's called Artificial Intelligence not Artificial
Conspiracy News Network.. (Score:2)
Talk About (Score:1)