Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations
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Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations
#2tl;dr: We apologize for getting caught. Ars Subscriptors in the comments thank Ars for their diligence in handling an editorial fuckup that wasn't identified by Ars.
Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations
#3Zero repercussions for the senior editor involved in fabricating quotations (they neglect to even name the culprit), so this is essentially an open confession that Ars has zero (really, negative) journalistic integrity and will continue to blatantly fabricate articles rather than even pretending to do journalism, so long as they don't get caught. To get to the stage where an editor who has been at the company for 14 years is allowed to publish fraudulent LLM output, which is both plagiarism (claiming the output as his own), and engaging in the spread of disinformation by fabricating stories wholesale, indicates a deep cultural rot within the organisation that should warrant a response deeper than "oopsie". The publication of that article was not an accident.
Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations
#4tl;dr: We apologize for getting caught. Ars Subscriptors in the comments thank Ars for their diligence in handling an editorial fuckup that wasn't identified by Ars.
The comments are trending towards being more critical as of my posting. A lot more asking what they're going to do about the authors, and what the hell happened.
Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations
#5tl;dr: We apologize for getting caught. Ars Subscriptors in the comments thank Ars for their diligence in handling an editorial fuckup that wasn't identified by Ars.
I don't know how you could possibly have that take away from reading this. They did a review of their context to confirm this was an isolated incident and reaffirmed that it did not follow the journalistic standards they have set for themselves.
They admit wrong doing here and point to multiple policy violations.
Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations
#6> We have covered the risks of overreliance on AI tools for years
If the coverage of those risks brought us here, of what use was the coverage?
Another day, another instance of this. Everyone who warned that AI would be used lazily without the necessary fact-checking of the output is being proven right.
Sadly, five years from now this may not even result in an apology. People might roll their eyes at you for correcting a hallucination they way they do today if you point out a typo.
Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations
#7> We have covered the risks of overreliance on AI tools for years If the coverage of those risks brought us here, of what use was the coverage? Another day, another instance of this. Everyone who warned that AI would be used lazily without the necessary fact-checking of the output is being proven right. Sadly, five years from now this may not even result in an apology. People might roll their eyes at you for correcti…
> Sadly, five years from now this may not even result in an apology. People might roll their eyes at you for correcting a hallucination they way they do today if you point out a typo.
I think this track is unavoidable. I hate it.
Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations
#8tl;dr: We apologize for getting caught. Ars Subscriptors in the comments thank Ars for their diligence in handling an editorial fuckup that wasn't identified by Ars.
The comments are trending towards being more critical as of my posting. A lot more asking what they're going to do about the authors, and what the hell happened.
> Greatly appreciate this direct statement clarifying your standards, and yet another reason that I hope Ars can remain a strong example of quality journalism in a world where that is becoming hard to find
> Kudos to ARS for catching this and very publicly stating it.
> Thank you for upholding your journalistic standards. And a note to our current administration in DC - this is what transparency looks like.
> Thank you for upholding the standards of journalism we appreciate at ars!
> Thank you for your clarity and integrity on your correction. I am a long time reader and ardent supporter of Ars for exactly these reasons. Trust is so rare but also the bedrock of civilization. Thank you for taking it seriously in the age of mass produced lies.
> I like the decisive editorial action. No BS, just high human standards of integrity. That's another reason to stick with ARS over news feeds.
There is some criticism, but there is also quite a lot of incredible glazing.
Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations
#9Odd that there's no link to the retracted article.
Thread on Arstechnica forum: https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/editor%E2%80%99s-note-...
The retracted article: https://web.archive.org/web/20260213194851/https://arstechni...
Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations
#10tl;dr: We apologize for getting caught. Ars Subscriptors in the comments thank Ars for their diligence in handling an editorial fuckup that wasn't identified by Ars.
I don't know how you could possibly have that take away from reading this. They did a review of their context to confirm this was an isolated incident and reaffirmed that it did not follow the journalistic standards they have set for themselves. They admit wrong doing here and point to multiple policy violations.
It's embarrassing for them to put out such a boilerplate "apology" but even more embarrassing to take it at its word.
It's such a cliche that they should have apologized in a human enough way that it didn't sound like the apology was AI generated as well. It's one way they could have earned back a small bit of credibility.