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B&H Photo Published an AI-Generated Guide Written by a Fake Person

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Re: B&H Photo Published an AI-Generated Guide Written by a Fake Person

#11

Post by beandgaethje »

Who cares? This is both my initial reaction and, on reflection, something I’m genuinely curious about. If one can’t tell the difference without deep investigation, the consumer likely doesn’t care (I don’t). Hopefully / presumably it would still go through whatever editorial controls are in place. So who does care?

If this is rooted in fears of our jobs being taken, the train has left the station and we need to deal with this reality sooner rather than later. If anything, we’re incredibly fortunate ai is taking white collar jobs first (like mine). Hopefully these people have enough social and political capital to ensure laws change in healthy ways (ubi at some point?).

Re: B&H Photo Published an AI-Generated Guide Written by a Fake Person

#12

Post by _jal »

beandgaethje wrote: post #11

Who cares? This is both my initial reaction and, on reflection, something I’m genuinely curious about. If one can’t tell the difference without deep investigation, the consumer likely doesn’t care (I don’t). Hopefully / presumably it would still go through whatever editorial controls are in place. So who does care? If this is rooted in fears of our jobs being taken, the train has left the station and we need to deal…

Maybe that works for pure entertainment.

I buy a lot of books, including a lot of nonfiction. I care quite a bit about the author. There's a lot of garbage out there with just flat wrong information. One of the few things you have to go on is an author's reputation.

Which, if you're making that up, becomes a garbage signal, and something approaching fraud. So for now at least, any outfit that publishes something that's supposed to be informative that's demonstrated to be "genai" derived means they've utterly lost my trust, and I won't be buying from them anymore.

There's also an ancillary issue I've never heard a good answer to. If you are publishing "genai" output, why would I pay you for it? I'll just ask GPT4 myself and not pay your cut.

If the answer is, "because we larded it up with all the signals that make it look like a human wrote it", well, see above about fraud.

Re: B&H Photo Published an AI-Generated Guide Written by a Fake Person

#13

Post by philwelch »

snickerbockers wrote: post #8

>Multiple companies have toyed with the idea of using AI to generate stories, all of whom have been widely panned for the decision. G/O Media (which operates Gizmodo and Kotaku) attempted it earlier this year, the result of which was error-riddled pieces and widespread pushback from its staff. The company plans to move forward with AI authors despite this. Gannett, which operates USA Today, also attempted it but pull…

> whatever ideals journalism may have aspired to in the past no longer exist (if they ever even existed in the past)

This is when I like to remind people that if you do a good enough job at journalism, you get an award named after a pioneer of sensationalistic “yellow journalism” who propagandized to start the Spanish-American War: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Pulitzer

Re: B&H Photo Published an AI-Generated Guide Written by a Fake Person

#14

Post by woodruffw »

jkaplowitz wrote: post #9
woodruffw wrote: post #2

> When reached for comment, a B&H representative claimed the company’s policy was not to use AI-generated content and that it would “investigate this matter with our content teams.” Shortly thereafter, the article and profile were deleted. But for a month, the story remained online and positioned itself as an expert guide written by a real person and visitors to the blog would have been none the wiser. Seems like a s…

Regarding the sales tax “hijinks”, B&H actually won that lawsuit because the judge agreed that the law did not require them to pay sales tax on those payments as the NY AG claimed. It’s not hijinks if they are interpreting the law more correctly than the government.

I think it’s fair to call creative tax dodges “hijinks,” even if they ultimately end up being legal. This is the standard that I’d apply to Apple as well (with their Irish Maneuver).

(Another example of this in B&H’s case is their store-branded credit card, which gives you a NY tax rebate. This appears to be fine legally, but it matches the general trend.)

Re: B&H Photo Published an AI-Generated Guide Written by a Fake Person

#16

Post by cjbgkagh »

philwelch wrote: post #13
snickerbockers wrote: post #8

>Multiple companies have toyed with the idea of using AI to generate stories, all of whom have been widely panned for the decision. G/O Media (which operates Gizmodo and Kotaku) attempted it earlier this year, the result of which was error-riddled pieces and widespread pushback from its staff. The company plans to move forward with AI authors despite this. Gannett, which operates USA Today, also attempted it but pull…

> whatever ideals journalism may have aspired to in the past no longer exist (if they ever even existed in the past) This is when I like to remind people that if you do a good enough job at journalism, you get an award named after a pioneer of sensationalistic “yellow journalism” who propagandized to start the Spanish-American War: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Pulitzer

I had no idea "yellow journalism" and the Pulitzer Prize were linked in that way, thanks for that piece of information.

Re: B&H Photo Published an AI-Generated Guide Written by a Fake Person

#17

Post by jdblair »

beandgaethje wrote: post #11

Who cares? This is both my initial reaction and, on reflection, something I’m genuinely curious about. If one can’t tell the difference without deep investigation, the consumer likely doesn’t care (I don’t). Hopefully / presumably it would still go through whatever editorial controls are in place. So who does care? If this is rooted in fears of our jobs being taken, the train has left the station and we need to deal…

As soon as I get the feeling that an article was written by a LLM, I stop reading. Usually it's repetitive phrasing, or grade school essay style summaries that turn me off. In short, a poor ratio of text to actual information. Even bad writing can have useful information in it, and I will plow through it. But vapid text that meanders without saying anything isn't worth anyone's time.

On the other hand, if LLM-generated text is actually good, and I can't tell... I guess then I don't care?

Re: B&H Photo Published an AI-Generated Guide Written by a Fake Person

#18

Post by nebula8804 »

philwelch wrote: post #13
snickerbockers wrote: post #8

>Multiple companies have toyed with the idea of using AI to generate stories, all of whom have been widely panned for the decision. G/O Media (which operates Gizmodo and Kotaku) attempted it earlier this year, the result of which was error-riddled pieces and widespread pushback from its staff. The company plans to move forward with AI authors despite this. Gannett, which operates USA Today, also attempted it but pull…

> whatever ideals journalism may have aspired to in the past no longer exist (if they ever even existed in the past) This is when I like to remind people that if you do a good enough job at journalism, you get an award named after a pioneer of sensationalistic “yellow journalism” who propagandized to start the Spanish-American War: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Pulitzer

Don't forget about the Nobel Peace Prize named after Alfred Nobel: The inventor of dynamite.

[1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel

From the link:

"There is a well known story about the origin of the Nobel Prize, although historians have been unable to verify it and some dismiss the story as a myth. In 1888, the death of his brother Ludvig supposedly caused several newspapers to publish obituaries of Alfred in error. One French newspaper condemned him for his invention of military explosives—in many versions of the story, dynamite is quoted, although this was mainly used for civilian applications—and this is said to have brought about his decision to leave a better legacy after his death. The obituary stated, Le marchand de la mort est mort ("The merchant of death is dead"), and went on to say, "Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday." Nobel read the obituary and was appalled at the idea that he would be remembered in this way. His decision to posthumously donate the majority of his wealth to found the Nobel Prize has been credited to him wanting to leave behind a better legacy. However, it has been questioned whether or not the obituary in question actually existed."

Re: B&H Photo Published an AI-Generated Guide Written by a Fake Person

#19

Post by LanzVonL »

woodruffw wrote: post #14
jkaplowitz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the sales tax “hijinks”, B&H actually won that lawsuit because the judge agreed that the law did not require them to pay sales tax on those payments as the NY AG claimed. It’s not hijinks if they are interpreting the law more correctly than the government.

I think it’s fair to call creative tax dodges “hijinks,” even if they ultimately end up being legal. This is the standard that I’d apply to Apple as well (with their Irish Maneuver). (Another example of this in B&H’s case is their store-branded credit card, which gives you a NY tax rebate. This appears to be fine legally, but it matches the general trend.)

There's no virtue in ignoring tax loopholes, it makes you into a schmuck if you pay more taxes than you're legally required.

Re: B&H Photo Published an AI-Generated Guide Written by a Fake Person

#20

Post by woodruffw »

LanzVonL wrote: post #19
woodruffw wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s fair to call creative tax dodges “hijinks,” even if they ultimately end up being legal. This is the standard that I’d apply to Apple as well (with their Irish Maneuver). (Another example of this in B&H’s case is their store-branded credit card, which gives you a NY tax rebate. This appears to be fine legally, but it matches the general trend.)

There's no virtue in ignoring tax loopholes, it makes you into a schmuck if you pay more taxes than you're legally required.

Sure; these are non-exclusive properties!
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