Two articles about two cases of news sites having generative AI write articles, six months apart.
1. “The tech site CNET sent a chill through the media world when it tapped artificial intelligence to produce surprisingly lucid news stories. But now its human staff is writing a lot of corrections.”
“‘I wonder if the seemingly authoritative AI voice led to the editors lowering their guard,’ [EE/CS prof. Hany Farid said], ‘and [were] less careful than they [might] have been with a human journalist’s writing.’”
(Article from January.)
2. “How an AI-written Star Wars story created chaos at Gizmodo”
“‘I have never had to deal with this basic level of incompetence with any of the colleagues that I have ever worked with,’ [deputy editor James] Whitbrook said in an interview. ‘If these AI [chatbots] can’t even do something as basic as put [Star Wars movies] in order one after the other, I don’t think you can trust it to [report] any kind of accurate information.’”
(Article from July 8.)