Look closely at this pix. Notice something? The part stating ChatGPT can be inaccurate. Now, expand this potential inaccuracy to AI generated news, able to replace human reporters working at news publishers like the NYTimes or Washington Post as needs warrant because, you guessed it, it's cheaper, never mind the issue of who can you trust when the entity writing the news is digital, not human.
That’s how, according to the New York Times, leaders at the Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal reacted to a new tool that Google is testing, known internally as Genesis, that uses artificial intelligence to write news articles. The tool “can take in information—details of current events, for example—and generate news content,” according to the Times, which reported on Wednesday that Genesis had been demonstrated for executives at the three organizations. “Google believed it could serve as a kind of personal assistant for journalists, automating some tasks to free up time for others,” the Times reports, adding that “the company saw it as responsible technology that could help steer the publishing industry away from the pitfalls of generative A.I.” The executives’ reportedly queasy response to Google’s pitch, though, speaks to the media's growing anxiety about artificial intelligence, and the role it may come to play in newsrooms. For months, the explosion of ChatGPT has fueled widespread concerns about the chatbot mimicking journalists' writing, replacing jobs dedicated to listicle/aggregate/summary coverage, and threatening journalistic standards. Newsrooms that have experimented with AI-generated stories, such as BuzzFeed, have already confronted the shortcomings of the technology—but it hasn’t been enough to steer everyone away. As Vox’s Peter Kafka notes, executives at G/O media—which publishes sites like Gizmodo, the Onion, and Jezebel—plan to create more AI-generated stories, despite the errors and scrutiny it recently wrought on the company. “G/O’s continued embrace of AI-written stories puts the company at odds with most conventional publishers, who generally say they’re interested in using AI to help them produce content but aren’t—for now—interested in making stuff that is almost 100 percent machine-made,” Kafka writes. (Google’s pitch, for what it's worth, seems to be in sync with the media's concerns: Jenn Crider, a Google spokeswoman, told the Times that AI is "not intended to, and cannot, replace the essential role journalists have in reporting, creating and fact-checking their articles,” saying that they could instead provide options for headlines and other writing styles. But it’s easy to see how the technology could be used otherwise.)
Channeling Faust applies ...
Addendum - For What it's Worth applies, does it not?
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