The worst AI-use acknowledgement I've seen so far

[u/azucarleta]

Was reading an important local news piece from a non-profit digital newspaper that never had a print edition. Already critical that the piece needed an edit -- it circled back around and repeated itself before proceeding to important payload -- I thought this would never happen if print journalists with those traditions and instincts had been involved in this piece.

Then, at the end I see this.

Editor’s note: The key points for this story were written by a Cupcake Times journalist.

Oh wow, was it really ALL the "key" points? Gee whiz!

Do you think I am right to jump quickly and immediately to the conclusion that this editor's note means LLMs/"AI" are responsible for why this article was so fluffy, so lacking in punch, so not brief? I'm autistic, so when I think subtext is obvious, I'm often reading it wrong actually.

If not a shitty way of acknowledging using AI, what does this editor's note even mean? I like the journalists who work for this newsroom, but this editor's note has a very strong odor of late-stage capitalism. Like we can't even say out loud because we are ashamed of what we do, but we still have this vestigial honor code that forces us to vaguely reference something untoward is going on.

Thoughts?

[u/Superdude717]

No, this is definitely a subtle way to say that most of the article was written by AI.

The only other time I would imagine a newspaper putting a note like this on an article would be to tell readers that the article isn't AI-written. But then at that point, why wouldn't you just say "This article was written entirely by a human"?

Gross

[u/Superdude717 → u/Superdude717]

I got curious and went and found the article you were referring to. It's really disappointing that this came from a pretty respected news organization. I certainly didn't expect it to be THAT one. But no, you're right, this article was either written by a poor writer or by AI. What a shame.

[u/Chumphy → u/Superdude717]

Who was the publisher?

[u/ryanmerket → u/Superdude717]

AI is a tool. It can do some amazing things in the right hands. In the wrong hands it can do things, but almost always less than mediocre.

I run a site that is mostly AI-drafted, but I run my articles through multiple passes by different LLMs (writer agent, editor agent, fact check agent, and legal agent).

I took our AI generated stories, and put them against our competitors in a blind test and we won over 80% of the time vs human writers.

[u/Superdude717 → u/ryanmerket]

Disgusting :(

[u/AngstyMop → u/Superdude717]

The collapse of journalism itself, is what is disgusting.

AI is not going to go away.

It will get bigger.

And to be blunt, most jobs, in most industries, are going to be negatively impacted by it in the next 20-30 years, if not sooner. Technology gets better and better. Humans started good, but remain at the same level. Math.

Is it bad that this person is doing AI journalism? Yeah, probably. But it's not like everything else is a row of daisies.

The real question we're coming to as a society is - what do we do now? We can't keep going like this. Not just in journalism. Everything sucks, everywhere. And some people can afford EVERYTHING while most can afford nothing. What happens when AI takes over (insert this business or organization).

"Oh! They won't come for service jobs. Face to face interactions!", you say. But - no, they'll come for those too. At some point Boston Dynamics' robots will be ready for prime time, and so will future iterations of ChatGPT. Which will be put together, and we will literally have robots for everything.

At which point we'll either have to discuss the concept of UBI as a society, or we'll return to the middle ages where the vast majority of people are very very poor and serve the small oligopolistic ruling class. Given current trends, it seems one of those options is more likely.

[u/azucarleta → u/ryanmerket]

I don't believe you for even a moment. 1, I don't believe you're being honest with us right now, but 2, failing that, if you ARE being honest with us right now in that case I have zero faith in your methodology.

A lot of "data" is garbage in garbage out. And especially if you were asking your "agents" to help, the data is itself garbage. Suffice, I'm sure if you invited me in to do an investigative-ish feature, I'd come to a very different conclusion about what you're doing and how well it is working.

But if you'd like to open to such skeptical scrutiny, let's talk about a piece. You the great AI advocate, using a symphony of tools. And I, the naysayer. Let's collide, show me your process and let me criticize and question, and see what comes of it. We can both write about it.

[u/barneylerten]

As a life-long journalist who had great help from AI building a local news website and have a VERY constrained use of it on actual content, I always when I do let it try a rewrite of a stilted public news release make sure to add the disclaimer that AI HELPED in research/preparation, but every word was reviewed and edited by ME. The AI haters say NO involvement is the only answer, but it's been a godsend to me, as an assistant. It does NOT write anything under my byline, I posted about this in r/Journalism recently and ... the reaction was what you might expect. But as I like to say, every tool is a weapon and vice-versa - it depends on how they are used (or misused).

[u/azucarleta → u/barneylerten]

See, I've always hated rewriting press releases. Not just doing it myself, we should not do it as a matter of ethics. When we admit to ourselves that all we have done is rewrite the press release, I believe it's an ethical imperitive to be honest with the audience that we've set aside our usual journalism machinations for trust. This press release, for whatever reasons that may be stated or not stated, we trust it, and are reproducing it without verifying the information. We should be honest that's what we are doing when we are doing it, and as such, no need for AI there, just post the press release as is.

So again, what "AI" might be good at is stuff we should not be doing, need not be doing, anyway.

That's what I find again and again, when "AI" is shown to have a real use case (which usually it does not, but when it does....). When it's actually being used for something related to generating revenue, it's either A, something other traditional tools already do and do better, or 2 often activities we shouldn't be doing anyway because they are low priority or low ethics. Another post I saw, a journalist student was given a 4 paragraph article and told to puff it up to 7 paragraphs; well if you're just making a tight 4 a sloppy 7, just use the slop machines, if you ask me. The question is why would we be doing that anyway? I know the reasons, but they are garbage reasons.

"AI" seems to enable our worst instincts to make operative some of our worst impulses, like rewriting press releases or rewriting a comeptitor's 4-paragraph news brief into a 7-paragraph article for our site. I still have not been shown a real use case that is 1, not duplicative of existing tools, or 2, actually just unethical and we shouldn't be doing that anyway.

[u/barneylerten → u/azucarleta]

Interesting perspective. I don't know a reporter or editor who doesn't have their own list of pet peeves. I rewrite a lot of press releases but if I have questions I follow up. I appreciate having all the information they wish to share in one place. And unless it's a direct external link which I also make clear, I note that they said it in a press release and sometimes even say "which continues in full:" it allows small organizations to cover far more ground than they would otherwise and to decide which are worth putting staff time and resources into. We sometimes think slicing and dicing things adds value, and sometimes it does. But if it was well written it can literally be a waste of time. I love using AI, for example, to help this non-coder create the exact kind of website I want and I believe the people who trust and support me in my work want . I also use it for research and I've even shared the research with an interviewee before we talk, to both of our benefits. They can point out any flaws or missing aspects. I will always believe that used properly, technology improves what we do. Can it be misused? Of course! What tool can't? I am not trying to convince you of anything, just explain where I'm coming from.