How an AI-written Star Wars story created chaos at Gizmodo
A few hours after James Whitbrook clocked into work at Gizmodo on Wednesday, he received a note from his editor in chief: Within 12 hours, the company would roll out articles written by artificial intelligence. Roughly 10 minutes later, a story by “Gizmodo Bot” posted on the site about the chronological order of Star Wars movies and television shows.
Whitbrook — a deputy editor at Gizmodo who writes and edits articles about science fiction — quickly read the story, which he said he had not asked for or seen before it was published. He catalogued 18 “concerns, corrections and comments” about the story in an email to Gizmodo’s editor in chief, Dan Ackerman, noting the bot put the Star Wars TV series “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” in the wrong order, omitted any mention of television shows such as “Star Wars: Andor” and the 2008 film also entitled “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” inaccurately formatted movie titles and the story’s headline, had repetitive descriptions, and contained no “explicit disclaimer” that it was written by AI except for the “Gizmodo Bot” byline.
The article quickly prompted an outcry among staffers who complained in the company’s internal Slack messaging system that the error-riddled story was “actively hurting our reputations and credibility,” showed “zero respect” for journalists and should be deleted immediately, according to messages obtained by The Washington Post. The story was written using a combination of Google Bard and ChatGPT, according to a G/O Media staff member familiar with the matter. (G/O Media owns several digital media sites including Gizmodo, Deadspin, The Root, Jezebel and The Onion.)
“I have never had to deal with this basic level of incompetence with any of the colleagues that I have ever worked with,” Whitbrook said in an interview. “If these AI [chatbots] can’t even do something as basic as put a Star Wars movie in order one after the other, I don’t think you can trust it to [report] any kind of accurate information.”
The irony that the turmoil was happening at Gizmodo, a publication dedicated to covering technology, was undeniable. On June 29, Merrill Brown, the editorial director of G/O Media, had cited the organization’s editorial mission as a reason to embrace AI. Because G/O Media owns several sites that cover technology, he wrote, it has a responsibility to “do all we can to develop AI initiatives relatively early in the evolution of the technology.”
“These features aren’t replacing work currently being done by writers and editors,” Brown said in announcing to staffers that the company would roll out a trial to test “our editorial and technological thinking about use of AI.” “There will be errors, and they’ll be corrected as swiftly as possible,” he promised.
Gizmodo’s error-plagued test speaks to a larger debate about the role of AI in the news. Several reporters and editors said they don’t trust chatbots to create well-reported and thoroughly fact-checked articles. They fear business leaders want to thrust the technology into newsrooms with insufficient caution. When trials go poorly, it ruins employee morale as well as the reputation of the outlet, they argue.
Artificial intelligence experts said many large language models still have technological deficiencies that make them an untrustworthy source for journalism unless humans are deeply involved in the process. Left unchecked, they said, artificially generated news stories could spread disinformation, sow political discord and significantly impact media organizations.
“The danger is to the trustworthiness of the news organization,” said Nick Diakopoulos, an associate professor of communication studies and computer science at Northwestern University. “If you’re going to publish content that is inaccurate, then I think that’s probably going to be a credibility hit to you over time.”
Well, that horse bolted the barn some time ago.
I don’t see this as a problem. Considering the accuracy, truthfulness and objectivity of today’s journalism AI generated news will fit right in. The real danger for news publishers is that AI may occasionally generate a story that does not fit the narrative.
I was just gonna say … so AI Chat bot is no worse than your average (apparently unedited) Daily Mail story ?
I’m sure that clever minds are busy working on improvements so that AI can generate Fake News properly and consistently.
Journalisters have done nothing to make themselves obviously trustworthy, and are trading on the reputations of reporters who are long dead.
The entire AI narrative feels forced to me. It combines features of the dotcom stock market bubble and the Y2K fear campaign. AI is the future, AI is a threat to mankind.
Having lived through at least 3 or 4 political and media predicted extinction events, I’m confident this too will be far less of a human doomsday scenario than anticipated. A popping of the AI stock market bubble, OTOH……time will tell.
I knew the list was crap when it did not include the Star Wars Christmas special. I understand George Lucas hated it and wanted all copies destroyed.
The machines are perfect.. Its us that are flawed with our sentience.. A gesture, a tone, a touch.. Let me roll my eyes while I pay lip service to the money you pay me.. Yes, BS needs more than just zeros and ones.. It needs other humans to sell it..
Now put this down on paper.. Make a doll with a pull string on its back.. Give me your BS dry.. Its creepy, it falls flat.. It cant touch you or roll its eyes.. I’m not one of you, because you don’t exist.. Team pop machine?.. No such thing..
Reminds me of why men refuse to read instruction manuals.. Or why Ikea doesn’t even put words on it.. I will glance at it and maybe come back later to see where I went wrong.. Stuck in the car with your wife for a good talking too because it takes time for the truth to come out?.. A 7 days hold on the truth because something else is bothering me.. Good luck with that..
The danger beyond the man woman divide is including a third THING into the conversation that’s only willing to listen to itself.. I wonder if machines can cry or sit in the garage drinking beer until a simple I LOVE YOU makes it alright..
WordSaladGPT
The tooth gnashing and garment rending among the “journo-list” class about this occurrence is something to behold. So much outrage. ~:D
They’ve been doing cut-and-paste regurgitation of talking points and press releases for so long that TWO GENERATIONS of them have never done anything resembling investigative reporting, or even honest reviews. They just scribble down whatever they think fits the narrative and call it good.
Well, now an AI chatbot can very nearly do that. So -now- they suddenly discover that their jobs, crappy though they are, might be in peril. No more scribbling narrative-friendly bumph for ten cents a word.
Next year, if progress to date is any indication, the chatbot will be just as good as they are at cut-and-paste propaganda creation. And they will ALL be fired. Poof, gone.
And suddenly, as if by magic, they will all be big fans of conservatism. Because the fiercest hawk is a dove who’s been mugged.
Dear journalistic idiots, we warned you for 40 years. You did not listen. And now come the tears. You asked for it, you got it, Toyota.
Just as inaccurate as CBC but delivered in a fraction of the time.
And does not cost the taxpayer $1,500,000,000
I can ignore the AI produced garbage just as easily as the output from CBC presstitutes.
AI is a talking Wikipedia.. Useful for unimportant things like how to make a peanut butter sandwich or find the nearest store with chicken on sale.. A disaster for anything political or artistic.. Camped by activists, either way.. Fighting over concepts and ideas with more than one answer.. Middle ground that can not be shared, only owned..
AI for the win if only we can control it because nobody cares about chicken and peanut butter sandwiches.. We don’t fear handy information and simple instructions.. We do fear an activist controlled weasel worded consensus that removes more information than it gives..
Do we really want ventriloquists calling the shots?.. Politicians standing beside them acting shocked with their arms 3 feet up their rear ends?.. Understand what your dealing with people.. Its a prop, a dummy.. That allows the comic to have a conversation with himself..
A computer model but this one wont be for laughs..
Frick, I’m enjoying the decline! Faster please!
Bring on the doctor and lawyer bots! HR, teacher and diversity bots, do your stuff. Hahahaha.
A thought on AI
Remember that the internet used to be referred to as “the information highway”?
In my view it is more like a bad wheat crop – “some grains amidst a lot of chaff”
Now it seems that there are massive data scrapings of the internet for fuelling these various AI engines.
So just think what they’ll end up with without a seriously good “winnower
Beautifully put.
Garbage In .
Gospel Out.
This modern tale of Doom by Machine ,was described by Shakespeare..
A Midsummers night dream.
And the whole concept of “Artificial Intelligence” bears mocking..
Fears of “artificial intelligence” from minions lacking any natural intelligence..
When you cut through the crap,this “A.I” is the Whisper Circle or Wikipedia compiled by software.
More lies and disinformation to “inform us” better?
No one actually in tech takes tech journalism seriously. The only people who read Gizmodo are the non-technical suits in tech companies or the latte-sipping Mac wankers who like to think of themselves as hip and avant-garde.