Ars Technica recently published an article that had quotes that were fabricated by AI/LLMs. When called on it by the person who was “quoted” for the sheer fact that he was NEVER contacted for a quote, Ars did a retraction.
There’s much talk about the ethics here and some good commentary here.
On the latest episode of the TWiT podcast Intelligent Machines, Leo Laporte, Emily Forlini, and Jeff Jarvis talked about it more.
For context: Jeff is a journalism professor and author, Leo is a veteran radio guy, and Emily is a senior reporter at PCMag.
So these guys should have an opinion on this.
Jeff was even handed and explained it like you’d expect a professor to be. Emily was more where I’m at, this reporter needs to be fired. This gives journalism a bad name (one that the industry fights all the time to avoid).
I was a professional journalist for 6 years in the early 2000s, if someone made up quotes then they’d be axed without discussion.
Why not now?
There is no excuse! None!
This is as bad as Stephen Glass‘ fiasco at the New Republic and Jayson Blair at the NYTimes. This is just for the AI age.
What do you think? Am I too heated about this? I might be. But this really gets my blood boiling.😁😃🍻
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