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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

#301

Post by lich_king »

madamelic wrote: post #290
Aurornis wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The author himself fell on his sword in detail on Bluesky. Not exactly. He wrote a long excuse blaming being sick, sidestepping the issue that he was using AI tools to write for him and not making an effort to fact check. Also Bluesky is not Ars Technica. It doesn’t matter what he posts on his own obscure social media page. We’re talking about the journalistic platform where he was given a wide audience. > Your onl…

Maybe I don't understand journalism but this guy being a reporter, shouldn't he have had an editor reviewing his work before they hit publish? I understand trusting a senior reporter but I would think due to libel concerns, they would check people's quotes ESPECIALLY if the reporter was sick. Honestly it seems like journalism has been in their 'vibe code' era for a decade where they just publish whatever typos and al…

It is not a job of the editor to assume that the author is lying to you.

> This was an institutional error, not an individual reporter's fault.

Ah yes, "the system made me use AI".

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

#302

Post by barbazoo »

lich_king wrote: post #301
madamelic wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I don't understand journalism but this guy being a reporter, shouldn't he have had an editor reviewing his work before they hit publish? I understand trusting a senior reporter but I would think due to libel concerns, they would check people's quotes ESPECIALLY if the reporter was sick. Honestly it seems like journalism has been in their 'vibe code' era for a decade where they just publish whatever typos and al…

It is not a job of the editor to assume that the author is lying to you. > This was an institutional error, not an individual reporter's fault. Ah yes, "the system made me use AI".

More akin to not having code reviews in opinion. If the process isn't there you're just not picking up certain issues.

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

#303

Post by smallerize »

fp64 wrote: post #69

Sad state of things. He did it because he was sick? That's close to claiming his dog ate the original quotes so he had to make some up. Well, Ars Technica is already for quite some time on my ignore list, and this further solidifies its place there.

Isn't Ars agreeing with you here though? It's not excusable and they fired him even after the apology.

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

#304

Post by jcranmer »

palmotea wrote: post #90
raincole wrote: post #39

I have to admit, nowadays Google AI Overview's accuracy is so good that I often don't check the links. It's scary that it got from 'practically useless' to 'the actual google search' in less than two years. I really don't know where the internet is heading to and how any content site can survive.

> I have to admit, nowadays Google AI Overview's accuracy is so good that I often don't check the links. It's scary that it got from 'practically useless' to 'the actual google search' in less than two years. It says things I know to be false fairly regularly. I don't keep a log or anything, but it's left an impression that it's far from reliable.

For my anecdote, I don't frequently deign to look at the overview at all... but every time I have, it has been completely and totally wrong. There's probably some selection bias going on in when I choose to try looking at it again, but still notable that the frequency is that high.

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

#305

Post by iepathos »

lich_king wrote: post #301
madamelic wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I don't understand journalism but this guy being a reporter, shouldn't he have had an editor reviewing his work before they hit publish? I understand trusting a senior reporter but I would think due to libel concerns, they would check people's quotes ESPECIALLY if the reporter was sick. Honestly it seems like journalism has been in their 'vibe code' era for a decade where they just publish whatever typos and al…

It is not a job of the editor to assume that the author is lying to you. > This was an institutional error, not an individual reporter's fault. Ah yes, "the system made me use AI".

If the Ars Technica editorial process requires assuming reporters don't fabricate quotes, then their process is inadequate. That's like a software company letting junior engineers release directly to production with just a spellcheck and no real process to catch errors. Major publications like The New Yorker, The Atlantic, etc. have a dedicated fact-checking department that is part of the process and needs to give the ok before any article is published. Why is their process so deficient by comparison? Why wasn't there any fact checking?

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

#306

Post by Aurornis »

madamelic wrote: post #290
Aurornis wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The author himself fell on his sword in detail on Bluesky. Not exactly. He wrote a long excuse blaming being sick, sidestepping the issue that he was using AI tools to write for him and not making an effort to fact check. Also Bluesky is not Ars Technica. It doesn’t matter what he posts on his own obscure social media page. We’re talking about the journalistic platform where he was given a wide audience. > Your onl…

Maybe I don't understand journalism but this guy being a reporter, shouldn't he have had an editor reviewing his work before they hit publish? I understand trusting a senior reporter but I would think due to libel concerns, they would check people's quotes ESPECIALLY if the reporter was sick. Honestly it seems like journalism has been in their 'vibe code' era for a decade where they just publish whatever typos and al…

The root offense wasn’t that this was published. The root problem is that the author submitted an LLM hallucination as a story. He should have faced consequences even if it had been caught.

> This was an institutional error, not an individual reporter's fault.

The person who caused the problem is at fault. It doesn’t help to do mental gymnastics to try to shift blame to a faceless institution. The author is at fault.

> We should also be asking why he was still contributing when he had a high fever. Why did his editors push him to publish his work?

I think you’re putting too much stock into the excuse. The author got caught doing one of the things you cannot do as a journalist: Publishing fake quotes. He was looking for any way to excuse it and make it not his fault so he could try to keep his job.

He made the choice. The consequences are his to bear. If it had been caught before publishing he still should have faced the consequences.

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

#307

Post by smallerize »

elAhmo wrote: post #230
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.

Ars isn't winging it here, they are following Conde Nast HR processes. https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/editor%E2%80%99s-note-... "I can confirm that the HR processes are intricate and complicated. I can confirm that we have union writers. I can confirm these things take time." -Aurich

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

#308

Post by mmmpetrichor »

xnx wrote: post #223
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.

I disagree strongly. I've found that they have more journalistic integrity than most mainstream news pages. Did you see the extremely strong post from the senior editor after this AI hallucination was discovered in a published story? And then the reporter was dismissed.

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

#309

Post by sjsdaiuasgdia »

paxys wrote: post #232
palmotea wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have to admit, nowadays Google AI Overview's accuracy is so good that I often don't check the links. It's scary that it got from 'practically useless' to 'the actual google search' in less than two years. It says things I know to be false fairly regularly. I don't keep a log or anything, but it's left an impression that it's far from reliable.

It is simply summarizing the top few search results. If they are false then the summary will be false.

That's not always the cause of the wrong info. I've had a few situations where I was asking pretty specific questions that absolutely have publicly documented authoritative answers, and the first several search results were either the authoritative sources themselves or things that reference the authoritative sources.

The AI answer got the actual questions completely wrong. The questions involved vehicle registration laws in a specific state. The questions included the name of the state. The AI's answer seemed to be giving information based on other states.

All of the first page of search results were specific to the state I asked for, so if it was just summarizing those you wouldn't think it would give answers that would only exist on entirely different pages.

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

#310

Post by dust-jacket »

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…

I absolutely disagree.

This has been done very professionally. They pulled the article. They handled the personnel matter. They didn't try to pretend it hasn't happened.

Why are people here acting like retracting an article is an attempt to hide something. They literally replaced the whole text with a note from the editor saying "this article was bad".

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