National newspaper duped into running GPT-4-written rage-click opinion piece
- Reference: 1684218851
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/05/16/newspaper_fake_article/
- Source link:
Last Thursday, the publication ran the comment piece under the byline Adriana Acosta-Cortez, described as a 29-year-old healthcare administrator living in North Dublin, who argued that Irish women using fake tan represented "a form of cultural appropriation." The [1]article sparked some debate online.
And then readers began to notice the byline photo of Acosta-Cortez looked odd.
[2]
The lighting looked unnatural and made parts of the image blurry, and her right pupil was bigger than her left one.
[3]
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One day later, an actual Acosta-Cortez [5]posted a message on Twitter criticizing the newspaper for accepting the submission.
"Genuinely sad that a once respectable news source has degraded themselves with such divisive tripe in order to generate clicks and traffic for their website. You need a better screening process than a believable Gmail address," Acosta-Cortez thundered.
It was a hoax; the person we were corresponding with was not who they claimed to be
On Sunday, the Times' editor Ruadhán Mac Cormaic said the organ had been duped into publishing a computer-generated article. "It now appears that the article and the accompanying byline photo may have been produced, at least in part, using generative AI technology. It was a hoax; the person we were corresponding with was not who they claimed to be. We had fallen victim to a deliberate and coordinated deception," Cormaic wrote in a [6]statement .
"We don't take this lightly. It was a breach of the trust between The Irish Times and its readers, and we are genuinely sorry. The incident has highlighted a gap in our pre-publication procedures … It has also underlined one of the challenges raised by generative AI for news organisations. We, like others, will learn and adapt," he added.
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There but for the grace of God goes El Reg . Arguably, the AI authorship of the piece is secondary to the fact that a newspaper ran an article by someone without verifying who actually submitted it. The piece could have been constructed by a human or computer; ultimately some editors thought it was good enough to run and did so. Still, the technology helped someone pen and byline an article they may otherwise have not bothered to pull together by themselves.
A person claiming to have submitted the piece [8]told the Irish Independent they wanted "to stir the shit in terms of the extreme identity politics debate," and said the byline snap was created using OpenAI's DALL-E model, and that the article text was generated using GPT-4.
[9]Will LLMs take your job? Only if you let them
[10]GitHub, Microsoft, OpenAI fail to wriggle out of Copilot copyright lawsuit
[11]Slack adding generative AI to interact with colleagues, so you don't have to
[12]Meta does the 'We found baddies and crushed them' thing again – this time for AI
Editorial oversight aside, publishers are grappling with the rise of generative AI. The technology has rapidly advanced, and is now capable of producing coherent-though-bland text and realistic images. Some outlets, such as CNET and BuzzFeed, are leaning into the tech and were churning out content created by AI models months ago. Meanwhile, Wired said it will not publish stories containing text generated by AI, and The Guardian is still pondering how its policies are impacted by AI.
The Register 's policy, for what it's worth, is pretty simple right now: write your own words, and don't plagiarize anyone let alone a bot; and while an AI system may be useful in suggesting information to include, don't trust it: check it against an authoritative source like you would any claim.
Also, we ensure writers are who they say they are.
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Software designed to detect AI-generated text is, meanwhile, often unreliable, and it's tricky to tell when something was written by computers. Earlier this month, NewsGuard [14]warned that "a new generation of content farms is on the way" after it found 49 websites publishing what appeared to be machine-fabricated click-bait stories making money off digital advertising. As if humans would do such a thing! ®
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[1] https://archive.is/oWcVH
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZGNUQplU-vWG-BXUSVpPJgAAAMs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZGNUQplU-vWG-BXUSVpPJgAAAMs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZGNUQplU-vWG-BXUSVpPJgAAAMs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://twitter.com/ecuadorian_adri/status/1657077563636740096
[6] https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2023/05/14/a-message-from-the-editor/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZGNUQplU-vWG-BXUSVpPJgAAAMs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/i-wanted-to-stir-the-s-says-person-behind-the-irish-times-hoax-fake-tan-article/a1844300112.html
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/15/will_llms_take_your_job/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/12/github_microsoft_openai_copilot/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/05/generative_ai_features_are_coming/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/03/facebook_removes_chatgpt_spoof_malware/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZGNUQplU-vWG-BXUSVpPJgAAAMs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/02/ai_written_content_farms/
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Specifically non-specific
Also, we ensure writers are who they say they are.
The statement applies to "We verify both the biological type and the electrified metal ones.".
I for one welcome the electric overlords. They are just as easily fooled as the biological ones.
AI isn't the issue, not even a little bit
Remember when the mainstream media used to try to work in a Titter angle to any minor story even when Twitter was only peripherally connected? AI is the new twitter.
Whether the story and byline photo were AI generated is utterly irrelevant to the main meat of this story. The primary issue here is that a major news outlet ran a piece that was utter tripe simply because they thought it would generate controversy. They didn't care a jot where it came from, they just saw it as something that would generate traffic and publicity in equal part.
The "fact" that it was AI generated is quite convenient for them. So convenient in fact that any reasonable person might wonder if the announcement it was AI generated was part of the plan. "Look lads, if we get called out on running this shoite what we do is claim we've been duped by a sophisticated AI scam. If that doesn't take the heat off we'll put Elon Musk in frame."
Re: AI isn't the issue, not even a little bit
It was probably a better article than the stuff my 'Local' Reach PLC rag puts out. They write articles about disagreements people have on Mumsnet, and where to get free takeaway food. I only know this because I use an Ad blocker, the site is pretty hard to navigate without one.
Re: AI isn't the issue, not even a little bit
Our local example is awful. It's obsessed with minor tittle-tattle, people being nicked for speeding, alleged pa*dophiles, and endless coverage of take-aways with 1-star hygiene ratings. I dunno what's worse, the mind-numbing nature of its triviality or the knuckle-draggers who comment on every one of those articles. As much as I may sometimes get irritated by some El Reg's esteemed Commentards™, the local rag's "discussions" really are down in the depths of the sewer. Oh, and even with ad-blockers it still manages to be irritating to read with its novel way of breaking scrolling. Mostly I don't bother unless something local is happening, and even then there's rarely anything of interest to be learnt anyway.
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The technology [generative AI] has rapidly advanced, and is now capable of producing coherent-though-bland text and realistic images.
Yes, maybe also, but the expanding explosive existential problem for humanity on Earth, is that the rapidly advancing and quite alien technology is surprisingly capable of producing extremely rich and disruptively creative text for realistic augmented virtualisation/televisual representation/metadata physical production.
And whereas the possibility and sad likelihood exists that humans might dismiss and even propose some sort of vainglorious organised resistance against such a development/intervention, AI in its many phorms would have no doubt about its current abilities with present facilities for future utilities, and its almighty primacy in brave hearts and open minds and deep thoughts capture.
This shows that LLMs are capable of: It is an opinion piece, full of assertions, with little argument or logic. No need to fact check. Nothing original (the same point of view has been expressed elsewhere in the past).
Unfortunately this is what journalists do. The Reg should not be too complacent - some of the opinion pieces here are pretty poor too.
The LLM did manage to insert some relevant links which is more than most journos writing for national newspapers see capable of.
Now they know how we feel
> We had fallen victim to a deliberate and coordinated deception
As we (real people) do to the fake news, exaggerations and manipulations from the news media, every day
Also, we ensure writers are who they say they are.
To verify your identity, please send a photograph of yourself holding a genuine Bitcoin and the front page of yesterdays Buzzfeed.