Fake News
July 20, 2023 12:11 PM Subscribe
Google Tests A.I. Tool That Is Able to Write News Articles "The tool, known internally by the working title Genesis, can take in information — details of current events, for example — and generate news content."
WaPo just did this. It was terrible, getting facts wrong. Stop me-too-ing, Google.
posted by Melismata at 12:22 PM on July 20, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by Melismata at 12:22 PM on July 20, 2023 [8 favorites]
What happens when the only news articles available for AI to use are also written by AI? Is that the point where the simulation we live in gets rebooted?
posted by tommasz at 12:23 PM on July 20, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by tommasz at 12:23 PM on July 20, 2023 [6 favorites]
WaPo just published an “interview” with an “AI Harriet Tubman” and I think that may be the worse thing I’ve seen come out of this whole horrible shitshow so far.
posted by Artw at 12:23 PM on July 20, 2023 [31 favorites]
posted by Artw at 12:23 PM on July 20, 2023 [31 favorites]
Model collapse model collapse model collapse model colla-
posted by subdee at 12:25 PM on July 20, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by subdee at 12:25 PM on July 20, 2023 [8 favorites]
The only positive i can see here is right now the same person investigates, writes, and fact checks. Maybe there are people out there who could be great journalists (investigating, fact checking) if they didn't have to do the writing part?
posted by subdee at 12:28 PM on July 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by subdee at 12:28 PM on July 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'm sure this will be one of those good Genesis projects. Not like that bad Genesis project that killed Mr. Spock.
posted by PlusDistance at 12:37 PM on July 20, 2023 [21 favorites]
posted by PlusDistance at 12:37 PM on July 20, 2023 [21 favorites]
(archive link)
Cryptocoins are flat, NFTs are a bust, now it's onto AIs. All the hucksters barking how they're going to be everywhere and changing our lives, all the Serious Journalists swallowing and uncritically regurgitating the hype, all the marks lining up to be fleeced.
posted by hangashore at 12:39 PM on July 20, 2023 [15 favorites]
Cryptocoins are flat, NFTs are a bust, now it's onto AIs. All the hucksters barking how they're going to be everywhere and changing our lives, all the Serious Journalists swallowing and uncritically regurgitating the hype, all the marks lining up to be fleeced.
posted by hangashore at 12:39 PM on July 20, 2023 [15 favorites]
"Hi! I know we destroyed your business in the previous decades by taking all of the profitable parts and leaving you having to pay for the whole 'fourth estate' thing, but this time we're really here to help! Wait, where are you going? Is that boiling oil?"
posted by gwint at 12:42 PM on July 20, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by gwint at 12:42 PM on July 20, 2023 [8 favorites]
Also it's funny the NYT found professor to comment on this issue named "Jarvis"
posted by gwint at 12:43 PM on July 20, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by gwint at 12:43 PM on July 20, 2023 [5 favorites]
My question for these publications: if you're going to replace everything with AI, why do I need your product; why would I not simply go to the source and avoid the middle-man?
posted by Dark Messiah at 12:45 PM on July 20, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Dark Messiah at 12:45 PM on July 20, 2023 [3 favorites]
Maybe there are people out there who could be great journalists (investigating, fact checking) if they didn't have to do the writing part?
Definitely, but that doesn't mean the writing part isn't important - a good article explains not just what happened by why it's important, how it fits in to other things that have happened or are happening or might happen, and so on. At the level where a journalist is already telling the AI which parts of the story matter, what order they should be presented in, and what the connections and significance are, there really isn't much left for the AI to do except maybe polish up the prose a bit, and maybe do stuff like add links to relevant articles. That's different than generating an article wholesale.
My question for these publications: if you're going to replace everything with AI, why do I need your product; why would I not simply go to the source and avoid the middle-man?
Mine is "are you telling me your content is just generic pap?"
I can understand why Google would do it, but the (relatively) prestigious news outlets publishing AI-generated stuff are just devaluating themselves.
posted by trig at 12:51 PM on July 20, 2023 [6 favorites]
Definitely, but that doesn't mean the writing part isn't important - a good article explains not just what happened by why it's important, how it fits in to other things that have happened or are happening or might happen, and so on. At the level where a journalist is already telling the AI which parts of the story matter, what order they should be presented in, and what the connections and significance are, there really isn't much left for the AI to do except maybe polish up the prose a bit, and maybe do stuff like add links to relevant articles. That's different than generating an article wholesale.
My question for these publications: if you're going to replace everything with AI, why do I need your product; why would I not simply go to the source and avoid the middle-man?
Mine is "are you telling me your content is just generic pap?"
I can understand why Google would do it, but the (relatively) prestigious news outlets publishing AI-generated stuff are just devaluating themselves.
posted by trig at 12:51 PM on July 20, 2023 [6 favorites]
My Dad, who's pushing his late 70s, has disturbingly started to sign up for a plethora of grifting-adjacent online services. A supposedly famous dating coach. A scummy background check/people tracker. Weird subscription vitamins.
The first thing that they all have in common is that they prodigiously advertise on the Fox News and other conservative media adjacent websites. The other thing that they all have in common are top Google hits under their name to paid editorials in formerly respectable newspapers. Because how tf are you going to convince a Boomer that, no, this wildly positive article in the Pulitzer Prize winning Sacramento Bee is very obviously a Press Release when it has all the aesthetic appearance of a legitimate article?
Unscrupulous copy writers used to be able to pull six digits writing that kind of persuasive bullshit. Now it can be pumped out for virtually free and, frankly, better quality because zero ethical filters.
Once the AIs fully cannibalize themselves and put all real news out of business, "news" will trudge forward like a zombie because there will always, always, always be high quality press releases for the algorithm to glom on to. Chalk-full of truthiness.
The worst part of it all is that intelligent AI agents could actually be used to supplement human work and enrich our lives, but I think neither utopian nor dystopian sci-fi ever fully grasped how the age of AI would directly follow the age of monetized and A/B tested bullshittery
posted by Skwirl at 12:58 PM on July 20, 2023 [22 favorites]
The first thing that they all have in common is that they prodigiously advertise on the Fox News and other conservative media adjacent websites. The other thing that they all have in common are top Google hits under their name to paid editorials in formerly respectable newspapers. Because how tf are you going to convince a Boomer that, no, this wildly positive article in the Pulitzer Prize winning Sacramento Bee is very obviously a Press Release when it has all the aesthetic appearance of a legitimate article?
Unscrupulous copy writers used to be able to pull six digits writing that kind of persuasive bullshit. Now it can be pumped out for virtually free and, frankly, better quality because zero ethical filters.
Once the AIs fully cannibalize themselves and put all real news out of business, "news" will trudge forward like a zombie because there will always, always, always be high quality press releases for the algorithm to glom on to. Chalk-full of truthiness.
The worst part of it all is that intelligent AI agents could actually be used to supplement human work and enrich our lives, but I think neither utopian nor dystopian sci-fi ever fully grasped how the age of AI would directly follow the age of monetized and A/B tested bullshittery
posted by Skwirl at 12:58 PM on July 20, 2023 [22 favorites]
Ed tech conference season is in full swing. All the buzz is about AI generated courses and being able to trim the budget for instructional designers and writers. Get ready for corporate compliance training modules (HR, IT) to get more terrible. Also coming soon to a school district, college and university near you. The text books won’t be any cheaper.
I look forward to the day when students use AI to cheat in AI created courses . The wealthier schools will use more sophisticated models for the AI’s that build their courses and the wealthier kids will be able to afford more advanced cheating AI’s. Thus ensuring the rich get A’s and allowing school administrators to no longer have those awkward private conversations with instructors about the importance that the wealthy donor’s kid needs to be graded a little more leniently.
posted by interogative mood at 1:01 PM on July 20, 2023 [5 favorites]
I look forward to the day when students use AI to cheat in AI created courses . The wealthier schools will use more sophisticated models for the AI’s that build their courses and the wealthier kids will be able to afford more advanced cheating AI’s. Thus ensuring the rich get A’s and allowing school administrators to no longer have those awkward private conversations with instructors about the importance that the wealthy donor’s kid needs to be graded a little more leniently.
posted by interogative mood at 1:01 PM on July 20, 2023 [5 favorites]
My Dad, who's pushing his late 70s, has disturbingly started to sign up for a plethora of grifting-adjacent online services.
I don't want to entirely derail this thread, just want to mention to Skwirl that they should find a gentle way to get their father in for cognitive testing. I've read more than one article that says when older people start doing things like this, it's often a symptom of something more serious going on.
posted by hippybear at 1:06 PM on July 20, 2023 [14 favorites]
I don't want to entirely derail this thread, just want to mention to Skwirl that they should find a gentle way to get their father in for cognitive testing. I've read more than one article that says when older people start doing things like this, it's often a symptom of something more serious going on.
posted by hippybear at 1:06 PM on July 20, 2023 [14 favorites]
Writers are going extinct any second now in the name of cheap and free AI. I wanna cry.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:07 PM on July 20, 2023
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:07 PM on July 20, 2023
I'm not hugely worried about decent journalists at outlets like the NYT and WaPo using AI to draft articles that are based on their own reporting and are then edited and fact checked. What scares me is the tsunami of AI generated crap that will inundate small local outlets (which have already had their staff slashed), Facebook, and Youtube, targeting Skwirl's dad and others who already have difficulty knowing who to believe.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 1:08 PM on July 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 1:08 PM on July 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
The Forbin Project would be a better name.
"This is the Voice of World Control"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkGsZ-qJ7uU
The "Voice" is Paul Frees, a famous voice actor.
Not a bad movie.
"The film is about an advanced American defense system, named Colossus, becoming sentient. After being handed full control, Colossus' draconian logic expands on its original nuclear defense directives to assume total control of the world and end all warfare for the good of humankind, despite its creators' orders to stop."
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project
posted by pthomas745 at 1:08 PM on July 20, 2023 [4 favorites]
"This is the Voice of World Control"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkGsZ-qJ7uU
The "Voice" is Paul Frees, a famous voice actor.
Not a bad movie.
"The film is about an advanced American defense system, named Colossus, becoming sentient. After being handed full control, Colossus' draconian logic expands on its original nuclear defense directives to assume total control of the world and end all warfare for the good of humankind, despite its creators' orders to stop."
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project
posted by pthomas745 at 1:08 PM on July 20, 2023 [4 favorites]
cheap and free AI
Cheap, free, and crappy. That's what galls me about all this. At least in non-fiction, the style is, at best, a mediocre tenth-grader's, and the content is, as we know, completely unreliable. It'd be one thing if the content were good. Instead, we're being force-fed this poisoned nonsense on the theory that "something has to go in this space, and we don't really give a shit what, and you, the customer/recipient/audience, can't make us care, either."
posted by praemunire at 1:10 PM on July 20, 2023 [8 favorites]
Cheap, free, and crappy. That's what galls me about all this. At least in non-fiction, the style is, at best, a mediocre tenth-grader's, and the content is, as we know, completely unreliable. It'd be one thing if the content were good. Instead, we're being force-fed this poisoned nonsense on the theory that "something has to go in this space, and we don't really give a shit what, and you, the customer/recipient/audience, can't make us care, either."
posted by praemunire at 1:10 PM on July 20, 2023 [8 favorites]
we're being force-fed this poisoned nonsense
Soylent A.I. is people.
posted by heyitsgogi at 1:22 PM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
Soylent A.I. is people.
posted by heyitsgogi at 1:22 PM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
In the sub-basement of what was once an industrial park, the server continued asking questions to the void.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 1:26 PM on July 20, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by MonsieurPEB at 1:26 PM on July 20, 2023 [7 favorites]
I think it is interesting to contrast areas where AI seems to be advancing knowledge (e.g., figuring out the shapes of proteins, "novel" strategies for the game go) and areas where it seems to be pushing against human advancement (e.g., the examples posted here, text just being a regurgitation of past stuff generated by people). What does a future look like where there are accelerating technological advances on the one hand, but cultural development becomes frozen at the moment when machines regurgitating old ideas overwhelm human cultural creation?
posted by snofoam at 1:33 PM on July 20, 2023
posted by snofoam at 1:33 PM on July 20, 2023
In the sub-basement of what was once an industrial park, the server continued asking questions to the void.
Credit where credit is due.
posted by Melismata at 1:35 PM on July 20, 2023 [9 favorites]
Credit where credit is due.
posted by Melismata at 1:35 PM on July 20, 2023 [9 favorites]
Sorry, my last comment was meant to be in the other thread about problematic AI, though it kinda fits here, too.
posted by snofoam at 1:35 PM on July 20, 2023
posted by snofoam at 1:35 PM on July 20, 2023
There’s so fucking many of them…
(Because of all the horrible AI, not because posters are bad of course)
posted by Artw at 1:53 PM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
(Because of all the horrible AI, not because posters are bad of course)
posted by Artw at 1:53 PM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
Perhaps this Genesis will be followed by an Exodus too.
posted by fairmettle at 2:26 PM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by fairmettle at 2:26 PM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
If I remember correctly, Genesis was followed by Peter and Phil's solo careers, and also Mike + The Mechanics.
posted by hippybear at 2:33 PM on July 20, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 2:33 PM on July 20, 2023 [6 favorites]
I laughed at this tweet:
Google proposing to resell the rendered product of scraping news sites *back to the news sites* after extracting the maximum value out of it in other contexts and using that profit to further refine it really is the lowest point of their extraction model.
posted by mediareport at 3:20 PM on July 20, 2023 [4 favorites]
Google proposing to resell the rendered product of scraping news sites *back to the news sites* after extracting the maximum value out of it in other contexts and using that profit to further refine it really is the lowest point of their extraction model.
posted by mediareport at 3:20 PM on July 20, 2023 [4 favorites]
hippybear, I'll believe you when I feel it in the air, ton-ight.
back to scheduled programming: KHAAAAAAAAAANNNN!!!1!!
posted by k3ninho at 3:22 PM on July 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
back to scheduled programming: KHAAAAAAAAAANNNN!!!1!!
posted by k3ninho at 3:22 PM on July 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
Are you saying the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?
posted by hippybear at 3:23 PM on July 20, 2023
posted by hippybear at 3:23 PM on July 20, 2023
infinity diversity in infinite combinations --and all wrong.
needs tags: FightClubSoap SellingTheirFatAssesBackToThem
posted by k3ninho at 3:30 PM on July 20, 2023
needs tags: FightClubSoap SellingTheirFatAssesBackToThem
posted by k3ninho at 3:30 PM on July 20, 2023
It'd be hilarious if blogs made a come back, because blogs were the only speedy relevant content, and thus could influence all the AI generated news. In theory, news organizations wants to promote their advertisers' agenda, but maybe they wouldn't care anymore so long as the AI gets fed well enough to not sound moronic.
It's also be funny if all the continual retraining meant these AIs' power bills cost more than all the journalists salaries, but again nobody both noticed and cared.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:40 PM on July 20, 2023 [3 favorites]
It's also be funny if all the continual retraining meant these AIs' power bills cost more than all the journalists salaries, but again nobody both noticed and cared.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:40 PM on July 20, 2023 [3 favorites]
my bad ... i thought the italics read it as a quote, and that it was internet/metafilter famous enough to need no bibliographic evidence.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 4:39 PM on July 20, 2023
posted by MonsieurPEB at 4:39 PM on July 20, 2023
Spock : It literally is Genesis.
Kirk : Power of creation.
Spock : Have they proceeded with their experiments?
Kirk : Well, the tape was made about a year ago, so I can only assume they've reached stage two by now.
posted by clavdivs at 4:49 PM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
Kirk : Power of creation.
Spock : Have they proceeded with their experiments?
Kirk : Well, the tape was made about a year ago, so I can only assume they've reached stage two by now.
posted by clavdivs at 4:49 PM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
Meanwhile, Canada just passed a law requiring Google and Meta to compensate news organizations when their content is shared on those platforms. Both companies have responded by removing links to news in Canada.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 4:49 PM on July 20, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by Gerald Bostock at 4:49 PM on July 20, 2023 [9 favorites]
Blah blah blah. It only has to be better than 49% of humans. You and I both know what you're thinking right now.
posted by metametamind at 5:46 PM on July 20, 2023
posted by metametamind at 5:46 PM on July 20, 2023
yahoo and msnbc like to link to things that i'm increasingly suspicious are written by a i rather than a shallow and unmotivated hack writer - for one thing the grammar and spelling are better - for another thing the utter lack of personality or even purpose is obvious
posted by pyramid termite at 6:11 PM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by pyramid termite at 6:11 PM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
news is a good candidate for things that should work differently in the 21st century than they did in the 20th.
loose guilds of trusted indie writers keep saying they love the news. but as in the arts, they appear to be waiting for the market to solve their problem.
posted by matjus at 7:21 PM on July 20, 2023
loose guilds of trusted indie writers keep saying they love the news. but as in the arts, they appear to be waiting for the market to solve their problem.
posted by matjus at 7:21 PM on July 20, 2023
I run a local news site and experimented with AI twice--once to write my biography with no plans to publish, and once as a part of a procedural "how to" series, in this case, on how to speak before a local government organization. The biography was loaded with correct information but then just spun off into fantasy about my life, children, where I lived, etc. There was no hint or warning about what was correct and what was simply invented. The how-to article was basically correct but was far longer than necessary, even bland ponderous. The purpose of the article "how to speak before the Town Board," was frequently restated, at nearly every step; the language was pretty vague, and the article was short on specifics and many times not focused on local requirements.
The real issue I have with AI is this: sure, we can get it to do our mundane tasks; yes, it might do great things with scientific research, etc. But I came up in newspapers as a copy editor, where knowledge was valuable. I'm so old I predate Google. So it was valuable to know, say, why the battle of Midway was so significant, what the largest planet is, which police precinct in town is the biggest, how Jerry Ford became president, and a million other things that might present themselves in stories on any given night, etc., without having to look it up. I fear AI doesn't make us smarter; quite the opposite, it turns us into dependents of the technology. I don't believe for a second that freeing us of mundane work will improve our lives or turn us into better humans so we can focus on doing useful things. As someone said of the internet, we have the world's entire knowledge at our fingertips and we spend our time watching cat videos.
posted by etaoin at 7:31 PM on July 20, 2023 [4 favorites]
The real issue I have with AI is this: sure, we can get it to do our mundane tasks; yes, it might do great things with scientific research, etc. But I came up in newspapers as a copy editor, where knowledge was valuable. I'm so old I predate Google. So it was valuable to know, say, why the battle of Midway was so significant, what the largest planet is, which police precinct in town is the biggest, how Jerry Ford became president, and a million other things that might present themselves in stories on any given night, etc., without having to look it up. I fear AI doesn't make us smarter; quite the opposite, it turns us into dependents of the technology. I don't believe for a second that freeing us of mundane work will improve our lives or turn us into better humans so we can focus on doing useful things. As someone said of the internet, we have the world's entire knowledge at our fingertips and we spend our time watching cat videos.
posted by etaoin at 7:31 PM on July 20, 2023 [4 favorites]
Are there "Made By Real Humans" tags yet
posted by Slackermagee at 9:06 PM on July 20, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Slackermagee at 9:06 PM on July 20, 2023 [3 favorites]
*rattles cell bars*
everything "AI" farts out is absolute garbage!!! it's worse than your high school newspaper! it's crummier than a junior high student's margin doodles! it's just objectively bad and weird! is anyone listening!?
all joking aside, i frequent pixiv, a japanese art site most analogous to deviantart in its heyday, and lately a majority of the new work posted is AI-generated. It's so depressing and the art is dogshit. I truly don't understand people who think any of this is good or even passable.
posted by petiteviolette at 9:12 PM on July 20, 2023 [7 favorites]
everything "AI" farts out is absolute garbage!!! it's worse than your high school newspaper! it's crummier than a junior high student's margin doodles! it's just objectively bad and weird! is anyone listening!?
all joking aside, i frequent pixiv, a japanese art site most analogous to deviantart in its heyday, and lately a majority of the new work posted is AI-generated. It's so depressing and the art is dogshit. I truly don't understand people who think any of this is good or even passable.
posted by petiteviolette at 9:12 PM on July 20, 2023 [7 favorites]
imagine what a nightmare dystopia it would be to live in a world where everyone is constantly plugged into their own personal retention-optimized disinformation realm, every reactionary impulse nurtured and massaged by a individualized LLM ad machine
that would suck wouldn't it
posted by glonous keming at 9:49 PM on July 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
that would suck wouldn't it
posted by glonous keming at 9:49 PM on July 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
take in information — details of current events, for example — and generate news content
So... you feed it news, and it generates news? That hardly seems like a cig achievement. Why not just read the "details of current events" directly, before they've gone through the AI?
posted by Dysk at 1:55 AM on July 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
So... you feed it news, and it generates news? That hardly seems like a cig achievement. Why not just read the "details of current events" directly, before they've gone through the AI?
posted by Dysk at 1:55 AM on July 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
As a copy editor who is still eking out a living as a journalist (like etaoin, I predate Google), I can say only:
Fuck you, Google.
Fuck you, Google.
Fuck you, Google.
Repeat ad infinitum.
posted by virago at 3:08 AM on July 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
Fuck you, Google.
Fuck you, Google.
Fuck you, Google.
Repeat ad infinitum.
posted by virago at 3:08 AM on July 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
What happens when the only news articles available for AI to use are also written by AI? Is that the point where the simulation we live in gets rebooted?
Self-Consuming Generative Models Go MAD (Model Autophagy Disorder)
posted by JohnFromGR at 6:44 AM on July 21, 2023
Self-Consuming Generative Models Go MAD (Model Autophagy Disorder)
posted by JohnFromGR at 6:44 AM on July 21, 2023
Chris Gioran:
Techbros: Here's the detailed technical plans for a working Torment Nexus.
Everyone: Building a Torment Nexus is a horrible idea.
Techbros: Why won't people focus on the technical merits of the proposal.
posted by Artw at 10:24 AM on July 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
Techbros: Here's the detailed technical plans for a working Torment Nexus.
Everyone: Building a Torment Nexus is a horrible idea.
Techbros: Why won't people focus on the technical merits of the proposal.
posted by Artw at 10:24 AM on July 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
Spock : It literally is Genesis.
Kirk : Power of creation.
Merrit Buttrick would be pissed.
posted by rhizome at 12:01 PM on July 21, 2023
Kirk : Power of creation.
Merrit Buttrick would be pissed.
posted by rhizome at 12:01 PM on July 21, 2023
> So... you feed it news, and it generates news? That hardly seems like a cig achievement.
You feed it copyrighted news articles written by journalists, which you can't just rip off and present alongside your owns ads, and it extrudes not-copyrighted newsoid content which you can.
That's the innovation.
posted by nickzoic at 10:58 PM on July 22, 2023 [4 favorites]
You feed it copyrighted news articles written by journalists, which you can't just rip off and present alongside your owns ads, and it extrudes not-copyrighted newsoid content which you can.
That's the innovation.
posted by nickzoic at 10:58 PM on July 22, 2023 [4 favorites]
« Older What does it mean, Country Music, and why does it... | "How do you tell the story of 50 years of hip-hop... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
2) put reporters writing the news out of business
3) ???
posted by Artw at 12:20 PM on July 20, 2023 [17 favorites]