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Our newsroom AI policy

arstechnica.com

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Re: Our newsroom AI policy

#11

Post by brey »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #8

Self-contradictory policy. > Reporters may use AI tools vetted and approved for our workflow to assist with research, including navigating large volumes of material, summarizing background documents, and searching datasets. If this is their official policy, Ars Technica bears as much responsibility as the author they fired for the fabricated reporting. LLMs are terrible at accurately summarizing anything. They very r…

The next sentence after your quoted section:

“Even then, AI output is never treated as an authoritative source. Everything must be verified.”

Re: Our newsroom AI policy

#12

Post by sharkjacobs »

sharkjacobs wrote: post #10

> Our creative team may use AI tools in the production of certain visual material, but the creative direction and editorial judgment are human-driven. As opposed to what? This is a little facetious, but what could it possibly mean to have creative direction and editorial judgement without human involvement? Presumably we're talking about image generated by a diffusion model or something, but further, an image which i…

There's a good post from Aurich in the comments of the article detailing the practical reality of how they (don't) use AI tools in their image work, but as a policy statement this sentence is 100% vibes, 0% actual guidance or restriction

Re: Our newsroom AI policy

#13

Post by applfanboysbgon »

brey wrote: post #11
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #8

Self-contradictory policy. > Reporters may use AI tools vetted and approved for our workflow to assist with research, including navigating large volumes of material, summarizing background documents, and searching datasets. If this is their official policy, Ars Technica bears as much responsibility as the author they fired for the fabricated reporting. LLMs are terrible at accurately summarizing anything. They very r…

The next sentence after your quoted section: “Even then, AI output is never treated as an authoritative source. Everything must be verified.”

Any verification process thorough enough to catch all LLM fabrications would take more work than simply not using the LLM in the first place. If anything verifying what an LLM wrote is substantially more difficult than just reading the material it's "summarising", because you need to fully read and comprehend the material and then also keep in mind what the LLM generated to contrast and at that point what the fuck are you even doing?

I believe this policy can never result in a positive outcome. The policy implicitly suggests that verification means taking shortcuts and letting fabrications slip through in the name of "efficiency", with the follow-up sentence existing solely so that Ars won't take accountability for enabling such a policy but instead place the blame entirely on the reporters it told to take shortcuts.

Re: Our newsroom AI policy

#14

Post by npodbielski »

It is nice to see, but I fear it will be the same as with papers and their news and internet. I could buy a paper and read it but why would I?

The same will most likely happen with human written news and cheap AI slop news. Why would anyone pay more for higher quality when you can have low quality cheap product?

Look at food for example. Price is most important factor in the choice of what you are going to buy. I will probably not happen now, in few months or in even few years but it will happen if models will still be advancing.

Re: Our newsroom AI policy

#16

Post by Paracompact »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #13
brey wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next sentence after your quoted section: “Even then, AI output is never treated as an authoritative source. Everything must be verified.”

Any verification process thorough enough to catch all LLM fabrications would take more work than simply not using the LLM in the first place. If anything verifying what an LLM wrote is substantially more difficult than just reading the material it's "summarising", because you need to fully read and comprehend the material and then also keep in mind what the LLM generated to contrast and at that point what the fuck ar…

> I believe this policy can never result in a positive outcome.

I get where you're coming from (I'm learning more and more over time that every sentence or line of code I "trust" an AI with, will eventually come back to bite me), but this is too absolutist. Really, no positive result, ever, in any context? We need more nuanced understanding of this technology than "always good" or "always bad."

Re: Our newsroom AI policy

#17

Post by JumpCrisscross »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #8

Self-contradictory policy. > Reporters may use AI tools vetted and approved for our workflow to assist with research, including navigating large volumes of material, summarizing background documents, and searching datasets. If this is their official policy, Ars Technica bears as much responsibility as the author they fired for the fabricated reporting. LLMs are terrible at accurately summarizing anything. They very r…

> the author they fired for the fabricated reporting

Didn't one of the magazine's editors share the byline?

Re: Our newsroom AI policy

#18

Post by riffraff »

> Our creative team may use AI tools in the production of certain visual material, but the creative direction and editorial judgment are human-driven.

How is this different from anyone else publishing AI slop images on their blog? Those people also direct the AI through prompting and evaluate the results.

I mean, use AI images, so long as they are not crap, but why keep up this charade of "we're authoring the slop".

Re: Our newsroom AI policy

#19

Post by JumpCrisscross »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #13
brey wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next sentence after your quoted section: “Even then, AI output is never treated as an authoritative source. Everything must be verified.”

Any verification process thorough enough to catch all LLM fabrications would take more work than simply not using the LLM in the first place. If anything verifying what an LLM wrote is substantially more difficult than just reading the material it's "summarising", because you need to fully read and comprehend the material and then also keep in mind what the LLM generated to contrast and at that point what the fuck ar…

> Any verification process thorough enough to catch all LLM fabrications would take more work than simply not using the LLM in the first place

Sometimes you have a weak hunch that may take hours to validate. Putting an LLM to doing the preliminary investigation on that can be fruitful. Particularly if, as if often the case, you don't have a weak hunch, but a small basket of them.

Re: Our newsroom AI policy

#20

Post by fooker »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #8

Self-contradictory policy. > Reporters may use AI tools vetted and approved for our workflow to assist with research, including navigating large volumes of material, summarizing background documents, and searching datasets. If this is their official policy, Ars Technica bears as much responsibility as the author they fired for the fabricated reporting. LLMs are terrible at accurately summarizing anything. They very r…

> LLMs are terrible at accurately summarizing anything.

I think you are perhaps stuck in 2023?

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