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Ars Technica fires reporter after AI controversy involving fabricated quotes

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Re: Ars Technica fires reporter after AI controversy involving fabricated quotes

#221

Post by latexr »

senko wrote: post #173
DamnableNook wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eric Berger has a strong pro-Musk bias (having literally written a fawning book about him). To him, Musk can do no wrong, it seems. I also dislike Dan Goodin’s reporting. He tries to talk the talk, but nearly every article he writes has some tell that he doesn’t really understand the thing he’s reporting on. Which is fine if he was relying on third-party expertise and quoting that, but he tries to make it sound like…

Berger wrote 2 books about SpaceX (not Musk), and he definitely does not have a pro-Musk bias. He's is careful not to opine on Musk's other dealings, which is fair. As someone who wants to know more about SpaceX, I don't want to read yet more about Tesla, or Twitter, or Trump, or Epstein. Personally, one of the authors I most like to read on ArsTechnica (though he writes rarely nowadays). CarTechnica though .. yuck.…

> He's is careful not to opine on Musk's other dealings, which is fair. As someone who wants to know more about SpaceX, I don't want to read yet more about Tesla, or Twitter, or Trump, or Epstein.

But all of those matter, and are not isolated. When the leader of an organisation is distracted by the other organisations they control, it matters. It also matters when they are repeatedly wrong about their predictions, even if on another organisation, because it helps you calibrate expectations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono...

Re: Ars Technica fires reporter after AI controversy involving fabricated quotes

#223

Post by xnx »

AnonC wrote: post #50

Journalists and bloggers usually write about others’ mess ups and apologies, dissecting which apologies are authentic and which apologies are non-apologies. In this incident, Aurich Lawson of Ars Technica deleted the original article (which had LLM hallucinated quotes) instead of updating it with the error. He then published a vague non-apology, just like large companies and politicians usually do. And now we learn t…

Ars is not journalism. It's scraped content to put between ads.

Re: Ars Technica fires reporter after AI controversy involving fabricated quotes

#224

Post by sumeno »

14 wrote: post #101
AnonC wrote: post #50

Journalists and bloggers usually write about others’ mess ups and apologies, dissecting which apologies are authentic and which apologies are non-apologies. In this incident, Aurich Lawson of Ars Technica deleted the original article (which had LLM hallucinated quotes) instead of updating it with the error. He then published a vague non-apology, just like large companies and politicians usually do. And now we learn t…

Where I work in healthcare honestly and owning up is encouraged and unless there is major negligence not often punished. They just want to try learn why the mistake happened and look for ways to prevent it going forward. My buddy said for his company if an accident happens WorkSafe is not out to punish as long as they are very forward and honest. Again they want to learn how to avoid it happening again. Punishment on…

If a doctor intentionally did something that they obviously know is unethical they would be fired too. This was not a "mistake", it is a huge ethical violation.

This is more like writing your buddy a prescription for drugs to take recreationally

Re: Ars Technica fires reporter after AI controversy involving fabricated quotes

#225

Post by senko »

latexr wrote: post #221
senko wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Berger wrote 2 books about SpaceX (not Musk), and he definitely does not have a pro-Musk bias. He's is careful not to opine on Musk's other dealings, which is fair. As someone who wants to know more about SpaceX, I don't want to read yet more about Tesla, or Twitter, or Trump, or Epstein. Personally, one of the authors I most like to read on ArsTechnica (though he writes rarely nowadays). CarTechnica though .. yuck.…

> He's is careful not to opine on Musk's other dealings, which is fair. As someone who wants to know more about SpaceX, I don't want to read yet more about Tesla, or Twitter, or Trump, or Epstein. But all of those matter, and are not isolated. When the leader of an organisation is distracted by the other organisations they control, it matters. It also matters when they are repeatedly wrong about their predictions, ev…

> But all of those matter, and are not isolated.

And have been done to death elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Berger produces balanced, informed, interesting, and informative coverage of space tech (in general, not just SpaceX).

Re: Ars Technica fires reporter after AI controversy involving fabricated quotes

#227

Post by sumeno »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #87

I guess Blameless Postmortems haven't arrived in journalism yet. Pretty weird that journalism as a business still revolves around "we hired a guy to write a thing, and he's perfect. oh wait, he's not perfect? it was all his fault. we've hired a new perfect guy, so everything's good now." My dudes... there are many ways you can vet information before publishing it. I get that the business is all about "being first", b…

This is more akin to "looking into your ex's private data at work" than "made a mistake that caused a production outage"

Re: Ars Technica fires reporter after AI controversy involving fabricated quotes

#228

Post by lukan »

mikkupikku wrote: post #203
lukan wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eric Berger at Ars for instance is someone I consider a journalist. Have you proof, that he systematically neglects truth in favor of ad selling?

Berger is a real one. I'm surprised he's lasted so long at Ars Technica. I think eventually his objective reporting of SpaceX will get the Are Technica reader base to demand his firing, Ars readers are very reddit-like. Team minded, not interested I hearing dispassionate takes. Hearing Elon Musk criticized as a person while simultaneously seeing SpaceX described as a real and highly accomplished company gives reddit/…

"Ars readers are very reddit-like"

How can you know? I think you mean most reddit commentors are very reddit like (nowdays I tend to agree). I read Ars from time to time, but I never commented there. But still, when I read comments, I don't get the impression that Berger is close of getting fired.

Re: Ars Technica fires reporter after AI controversy involving fabricated quotes

#229

Post by the_af »

To me this is extremely relevant regardless of the specifics in this case. From TFA:

> It also comes at a moment in which many media bosses are pushing staff to find uses for AI — as are executives across most industries — even while clear guidelines around use of the technology that uphold editorial ethics remain elusive.

Anyone who's working with computers now knows this is true. We're being pushed relentlessly to use AI; in some cases (I've heard second hand) people are mandated to use AI, sometimes forbidden from crafting code manually, and are disciplined if they don't. Yet the guidelines are very unclear, as they must be since if we're honest we're all threading new ground.

This, being mandated to use AI at all costs yet given very brittle/unclear indications on how to use it, and these guidelines evolve weekly, and also we're all fearful of losing our jobs, makes for a recipe for disaster.

So yeah, this journalist should have called in sick and use better judgment when toying with AI tools, but still there's a wider problem and the responsibility for this craziness is also on the leadership of most companies and the investors pusing for this.

(None of this is an excuse for generating AI slop. I hate it and I don't need to be told any guidelines about not doing it. If you cannot be bothered to write the text, I cannot be bothered to read it.)

Re: Ars Technica fires reporter after AI controversy involving fabricated quotes

#230

Post by elAhmo »

AnonC wrote: post #50

Journalists and bloggers usually write about others’ mess ups and apologies, dissecting which apologies are authentic and which apologies are non-apologies. In this incident, Aurich Lawson of Ars Technica deleted the original article (which had LLM hallucinated quotes) instead of updating it with the error. He then published a vague non-apology, just like large companies and politicians usually do. And now we learn t…

> There’s something to be said about the value of owning up to issues and being forthright with actions and consequences.

Exactly! The situation happened, no going back, but they had a choice - to be transparent about it and I am sure people would be appreciative of it, maybe giving them net positive rather than negative, but the choice they have made is a complete opposite and a sign that no one should trust them.

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