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CNET Has Been Quietly Publishing AI-Written Articles for Months
Gizmodo ^

Posted on 01/14/2023 5:12:25 AM PST by FarCenter

CNET reporter Jackson Ryan published an article last month describing how ChatGPT, an AI that can generate human-sounding text, would affect journalists and the news industry: “ChatGPT Is a Stunning AI, but Human Jobs Are Safe (for Now).”

“It definitely can’t do the job of a journalist,” Ryan wrote of ChatGPT. “To say so diminishes the act of journalism itself.”

The article said ChatGPT isn’t coming for journalists’ jobs just yet, but the very publication that ran Ryan’s article has been quietly publishing articles written by AI since November, according to Futurism and online marketer Gael Breton. The AI-written CNET articles bear the byline CNET Money Staff which is identified on the outlet’s website as “AI Content published under this author byline is generated using automation technology.”

CNET responded in a linked statement via email, saying the Money editorial team was trying out the technology “to see if there’s a pragmatic use case for an AI assist on basic explainers around financial services topics.”

CNET’s Editor in Chief, Connie Guglielmo, said in the statement that the company’s goal had been if the AI engine would be able to assist their “busy staff of reporters and editors with their job to cover topics from a 360-degree perspective.”

The company questioned if CNET would benefit from AI content to provide available facts, allowing readers to “make better decisions.”

The first article written by CNET Money Staff was published on November 11 with the headline, “What is a credit card charge-off?” Since then, the news site has published 73 AI-generated articles, but the outlet says on its website that a team of editors is involved in the content “from ideation to publication. Ensuring that the information we publish and the recommendations we make are accurate, credible, and helpful to you is a defining responsibility for what we do.”

The outlet says they will continue to publish each article with “editorial integrity” and says, “Accuracy, independence, and authority remain key principles of our editorial guidelines.”


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cnet
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1 posted on 01/14/2023 5:12:25 AM PST by FarCenter
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To: FarCenter

Most of the stock market “analysis” written by “experts” on mainstream web sites could easily be replaced by AI.

It is meaningless drivel.


2 posted on 01/14/2023 5:15:22 AM PST by cgbg (Claiming that laws and regs that limit “hate speech” stop freedom of speech is “hate speech”.)
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To: FarCenter

How hard can it be to paraphrase a press release?


3 posted on 01/14/2023 5:20:33 AM PST by GMMC0987
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To: FarCenter

This is why all the articles are starting to look and read the same.


4 posted on 01/14/2023 5:25:31 AM PST by JoJo354 (We need to get to work, Conservatives!)
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To: FarCenter
Anybody can write an article written by a liberal "journalist", even AI. Just plug in a couple of relevant talking points, a number or two of made up statistics that "prove" Trump's involvement, flip the switch, and boom - you have another Charles Blow or Piers Morgan article.

The advanced versions of AI will perhaps be able to combine words into unique insults.

5 posted on 01/14/2023 5:34:05 AM PST by Hardastarboard (Don't wish your enemy ill; plan it. )
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To: FarCenter

You can bet that human reporting will become the minority of what is published.

What are the consequences of this to Free Speech?

Eventually one AI program will come to dominate reporting.

You can bet that the “Style” of that reporting will have a Leftist bent by default.


6 posted on 01/14/2023 5:43:16 AM PST by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spiritIq)
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To: cgbg

Blackrock has spent tons of money on it. Heck, they sell access to the data the AI spits out based on the trends. I believe the giant push for WallStreet into residential real estate was from Blackrock’s AI recommendations.


7 posted on 01/14/2023 5:45:07 AM PST by wgmalabama (Censored!)
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To: JoJo354

Connie was a darn good journalist. Good for Connie.


8 posted on 01/14/2023 5:51:47 AM PST by Lisbon1940 (I don’t see why they would)
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To: JoJo354

I know I’m in the wrong place when everyone believes the same. Nothing unique. No Truth. No Beauty. Goodness is relative.


9 posted on 01/14/2023 5:54:01 AM PST by griswold3 (Truth, Beauty and Goodness )
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To: Hardastarboard

“The advanced versions of AI will perhaps be able to combine words into unique insults.”


‘Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!”


10 posted on 01/14/2023 5:55:36 AM PST by Not_Who_U_Think
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To: FarCenter

It’s amazing to me CNet even still exists. It was a great website in the 90s, excellent reviews, great downloads. But boy they went to crap fast. I haven’t gone there in over a decade. From what I saw then AI reporting could only be an improvement.


11 posted on 01/14/2023 5:59:29 AM PST by discostu (like a dog being shown a card trick)
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To: FarCenter

ChatGPT pulls sentences from the web. In other words, this is plagiarism.


12 posted on 01/14/2023 6:02:40 AM PST by ArcadeQuarters (You can't remove RINOs by voting for them!)
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To: FarCenter
“It definitely can’t do the job of a journalist,”

What job is that? To take deep state talking points and parrot them?

13 posted on 01/14/2023 6:05:40 AM PST by Sirius Lee (They intend to murder us. Prep if you want to live and live like you are prepping for eternal life)
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To: FarCenter

CNET’S COIMPUTEER DID THE AUTO LAYOFF THING WE’RE ALL UNEMPLYED!


14 posted on 01/14/2023 6:12:11 AM PST by BBB333 (The Power Of Trump Compels You!)
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To: FarCenter
"...human-sounding text..."?
15 posted on 01/14/2023 6:17:42 AM PST by KrisKrinkle (c)
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To: FarCenter

To replace the Woke you would need Artificial Idiotic.


16 posted on 01/14/2023 6:35:59 AM PST by Rurudyne (Standup Philosopher)
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To: Pontiac

Ben Shapiro played with this on a video I saw and damned if the thing didn’t have a liberal bent to it.


17 posted on 01/14/2023 7:02:06 AM PST by Sarcazmo ("Sarcasm is the highest form of wit" ~ O. Wilde)
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To: wgmalabama

“giant push for WallStreet into residential real estate was from Blackrock’s AI recommendations”

It was a truly crackpot idea—which all the “investors” are going to learn the hard way.

While the total residential real estate is gigantic, the trading (transaction) market is relatively small and not very liquid—perfect ingredients for a panic and crash eventually.


18 posted on 01/14/2023 7:16:08 AM PST by cgbg (Claiming that laws and regs that limit “hate speech” stop freedom of speech is “hate speech”.)
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To: FarCenter

I suppose that AI can be programmed to systematically lie like regular “journalists”.


19 posted on 01/14/2023 7:45:45 AM PST by devere
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To: cgbg

I read that a few “residential real estate” funds were denying withdrawals since it really wasn’t setup to hold large cash reserves to fund flipping funds. When interest rates started spiking the thought people had was value would drop. Those funds are heavily leveraged so a 5-10% price drop will sink them. I hope so. Greed and max profit off the working class is not a virtue that they should be trying to maximize profits IMHO. I have no issue with profits from efficiency, market forces … but they were trying to turn to be slum lords. Hope they get squeezed big time.


20 posted on 01/14/2023 7:54:07 AM PST by wgmalabama (Censored!)
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