Several of the subscribers in the comments are so eager to praise Ars for "catching" the error and being honest by retracting the article, as if that's not an expected journalistic standard. They're so happy to have a reason NOT to be upset. This wasn't even caught by Ars or any of its readers. The guy being misquoted had to sign up and post a comment about it.
Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations
101–110 of 223 posts
Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations
#102Benj Edwards, one of the authors, accepted responsibility in a bluesky post[0]. He lists some extenuating circumstances[1], but takes full responsibility. Time will tell if it's a one-off thing or not I guess. [0] https://bsky.app/profile/benjedwards.com/post/3mewgow6ch22p [1] your mileage may vary on how much you believe it and how much slack you want to cut him if you do
I speculate that curious minds, with a forensic inclination and free time, will go back to previous articles and find out it happened before...When you see a cockroach...
Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations
#103People put a lot of weight on blame-free post-mortems and not punishing people who make "mistakes", but I believe that has to stop at the level of malice. Falsifying quotes is malice. Fire the malicious party or everything else you say is worthless.
I'm curious if you've read the author's Bluesky statement (which wasn't available when you made your comment) and what you think of it?
Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations
#104Bluesky post by Benj (one of the authors of the article). https://bsky.app/profile/benjedwards.com/post/3mewgow6ch22p He admits to using an AI tool, says he was sick and did dumb things. He does clear Kyle (the other author).
Really refreshing to see someone owning up to their mistake, that is something rare nowadays.
He did not even mentioned the Dow...
Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations
#105Benj Edwards, one of the authors, accepted responsibility in a bluesky post[0]. He lists some extenuating circumstances[1], but takes full responsibility. Time will tell if it's a one-off thing or not I guess. [0] https://bsky.app/profile/benjedwards.com/post/3mewgow6ch22p [1] your mileage may vary on how much you believe it and how much slack you want to cut him if you do
That's a poor mea culpa. It begins with a preamble attempting to garner sympathy from the reader before it gets to the acknowledgement of the error, which is a sleight-of-hand attempt to soften its severity.
Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations
#106Bluesky post by Benj (one of the authors of the article). https://bsky.app/profile/benjedwards.com/post/3mewgow6ch22p He admits to using an AI tool, says he was sick and did dumb things. He does clear Kyle (the other author).
Wow, he admits to using two AI tools: He used Claude Code, which failed because the blog was intentionally set up to refuse AI crawlers, so he pasted the page into ChatGPT. Then he blames ChatGPT for paraphrasing the hallucinated quotes.
He makes the claim that he was just using AI to help him put together an outline for his article, when the evidence clearly shows that he used the AI's verbatim output.
Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations
#107Bluesky post by Benj (one of the authors of the article). https://bsky.app/profile/benjedwards.com/post/3mewgow6ch22p He admits to using an AI tool, says he was sick and did dumb things. He does clear Kyle (the other author).
Really refreshing to see someone owning up to their mistake, that is something rare nowadays.
What alternative action could he possibly take? He's owning up to something indisputable.
Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
The bylines are known, check in 4-5 months whether either or both names still appear on new articles or not..
They're both still on the staff page presently. https://arstechnica.com/staff-directory/ It is definitely not a good look for a "Senior AI Reporter."
Yeah the problem is we understood AI reporter as reporting on AI not by AI.
Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations
#109Benj Edwards, one of the authors, accepted responsibility in a bluesky post[0]. He lists some extenuating circumstances[1], but takes full responsibility. Time will tell if it's a one-off thing or not I guess. [0] https://bsky.app/profile/benjedwards.com/post/3mewgow6ch22p [1] your mileage may vary on how much you believe it and how much slack you want to cut him if you do
The bigger problem is that he felt the need to work while ill in bed, with very little sleep and sick with fever. Makes me wonder about Ars Technica's company culture.
Have you met any professional journos? It's not exactly a laid back profession. I could easily imagine the people I know pushing through illness to get a story out.
Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations
#110People put a lot of weight on blame-free post-mortems and not punishing people who make "mistakes", but I believe that has to stop at the level of malice. Falsifying quotes is malice. Fire the malicious party or everything else you say is worthless.
There’s no malice if there was no intention of falsifying quotes. Using a flawed tool doesn’t count as intention.
I think that is the crucial question. Often we lump together malice with "reckless disregard". The intention to cause harm is very close to the intention to do something that you know or should know is likely to cause harm, and we often treat them the same because there is no real way to prove intent, so otherwise everyone could just say they "meant no harm" and just didn't realize how harmful their actions could be.
I think that a journalist using an AI tool to write an article treads perilously close to that kind of recklessness. It is like a carpenter building a staircase using some kind of weak glue.