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Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations

arstechnica.com

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Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations

#171

Post by jonny_eh »

chasd00 wrote: post #134
anonymous908213 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. This is being treated as thought it were a mistake, and oh, humans make mistakes! But it was no mistake. Possibly it was a mistake on the part of whoever was responsible for reviewing the article before publication didn't catch it. But plagiariasm and fabrication require malicious intent, and the authors responsible engaged in both.

> Possibly it was a mistake on the part of whoever was responsible for reviewing the article before publication didn't catch it My wife, former journalist, said that you don’t direct quote anyone without talking to them first and verifying what you’re quoting is for sure from them. The she said “I guess they have no editors?” because in her experience editors aren’t like fact checkers but they’re suppose to have the…

> My wife left journalism about 15 years ago so maybe things are different

Ya, they are quite different!

Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations

#172

Post by [deleted] »

anonymous908213 wrote: post #17
blell wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no malice if there was no intention of falsifying quotes. Using a flawed tool doesn’t count as intention.

Outsourcing your job as a journalist to a chatbot that you know for a fact falsifies quotes (and everything else it generates) is absolutely intentional.

[deleted]

Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations

#173

Post by iamtedd »

Kinda disappointing that the post that first reported the Ars Technica article and retraction got ~50% more comments than this one at about the same age. Seems people just love to outrage and complain than wait for the promised post-mortem, which if anything, came early.

Ref: https://web.archive.org/web/20260214134656/https://news.ycom...

Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations

#174

Post by lemontheme »

sli wrote: post #162
bojan wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree that the work culture promoting this is bad, but being sick is still simply not an excuse to fabricate quotes with AI. It's still just journalistic malfeasance, and if Ars actually cares about the quality of their journalism, he should be fired for it.

Should he? Where does that mindset come from? The author has owned up to his mistake. Unless there is a pattern here, why would we not prefer to let him learn and grow from this? We all get to accidentally drop the prod DB once, since that’s what teaches us not to do it again.

Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations

#175

Post by lich_king »

> Ars Technica does not permit the publication of AI-generated material unless it is clearly labeled and presented for demonstration purposes. That rule is not optional, and it was not followed here.

Both from the Mastodon post of the journalist (which admits to casual use of more than one LLM), and from a cursory review of this author's past articles, I'm willing to bet that this rule wasn't followed more than once.

Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations

#176

Post by petterroea »

stevekemp wrote: post #170
petterroea wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it an American thing to work even when you are sick?

There's no federal entitlement to being paid if you're sick, so companies come up with their own policies. So companies often have a strange concept of "sick days", a specific number of days a year you're allowed to be sick. If you're sick more than that you have to use your vacation days, or unpaid leave when you're sick. (And of course American companies often have weirdness around vacations too. More so in compani…

Thank you for the explanation.

Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations

#177

Post by cwillu »

imron wrote: post #166
mzajc wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was, it's in the first paragraph > I have been sick with COVID all week /../, while working from bed with a fever and very little sleep, I unintentionally made a serious journalistic error in an article about Scott Shambaugh.

How do you unintentionally use an AI to help you write an article?

A fever can cause altered mental states, confusion, etc. It's not surprising that someone suffering from one would act out of character.

Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations

#178

Post by cwillu »

ilamont wrote: post #113

Former technology journalist here. If you want to experiment with reported news using untested tools that have known quality problems, do it in a strictly controlled environment where the output can be carefully vetted. Senior editor(s) need to be in the loop. Start with something easier, not controversial or high-profile articles. One other thing. If the author cut corners because he's too sick to write, but did so…

I think this is entirely plausible lapse for someone with a bad fever, especially if they routinely work from home and are primarily communicating over text-based channels. Personally I'm much more inclined to blame the organization, as it sounds like they knowingly accepted work from someone who was potentially going to be in an altered mental state.

Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations

#179

Post by bayindirh »

sli wrote: post #162
bojan wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree that the work culture promoting this is bad, but being sick is still simply not an excuse to fabricate quotes with AI. It's still just journalistic malfeasance, and if Ars actually cares about the quality of their journalism, he should be fired for it.

> he should be fired for it.

If anyone who makes a mistake rarely and owns it completely shall be fired, everyone would be homeless.

To err is human, so owning what you did. This is the first time I have seen Ars to make a mistake of this kind in any size, so I think this is a good corrective bump given Ars' track report on these matters.

Maybe we should learn to be a bit flexible and understanding sometimes. If you live by the sword, you die by the sword, and we don't need more of that right now.

Re: Editor's Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations

#180

Post by bayindirh »

imron wrote: post #166
mzajc wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was, it's in the first paragraph > I have been sick with COVID all week /../, while working from bed with a fever and very little sleep, I unintentionally made a serious journalistic error in an article about Scott Shambaugh.

How do you unintentionally use an AI to help you write an article?

Being under stress and being ill at the same time can change your modus operandi. I know, because that happens to me, too.

When I'm too tired, too stupid, and too stressed, I stop after a point. Otherwise things go bad. Being sick adds extra mental fog, so I try to stop sooner.

Being aware of it needs some effort, though.

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