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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

#341

Post by lukan »

mikkupikku wrote: post #330
lukan wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

It's a little thing called reading. I read Are comments, I read reddit comments, and I judge them to both be a bunch of morons who are perpetually suspicious of nuance.

You did not seem to got my point, that there are readers, but not all of them are commentors? So judging all readers because you perceive commentors as mainly stupid is maybe missing data?

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

#342

Post by Y-bar »

clint wrote: post #340
Y-bar wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, dearly missed. As is John Siracusa’s Mac OS reviews.

Most of these people left because the Ars readership is insanely toxic as evidenced in this thread.

Could be. I am currently scrolling the comments on the new Apple displays and the gatekeeping "Only rEaL ProoOOOs should have any achual use for frame rates over 60. Ur just lowly a gamer. Shoo!" attitude is through the roof there.

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

#343

Post by ValentineC »

afavour wrote: post #338
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…

Sadly this is a reality of the money disappearing from the journalism industry. You're right, there absolutely should be fact checkers. A reporter absolutely shouldn't be filing while sick. And the big news orgs still do that. But I doubt Ars has the resources.

> But I doubt Ars has the resources.

Ars is owned by Conde Nast, which is owned by Advance Publications. Ars's parents could have funded all these to ensure journalistic integrity, but would rather squeeze their staff and make money off the brand goodwill and advertising.

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

#345

Post by vintagedave »

crazygringo wrote: post #269
vintagedave wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes: in newsrooms, this is the editor's responsibility. I note the editor wasn't fired.

It's the editor's responsibility to set processes and standards to try to make sure this doesn't happen. If the rules exist but the reporter breaks them, then it's the reporter's fault and they get fired. As happened -- that's part of the process of maintaining standards. It's not the editor's fault. What exactly do you expect them to do? They can't fact-check and verify every single fact and quote in every article.…

Why not? Copy-paste-google would be a sanity check for 99% of them.

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

#346

Post by vintagedave »

mikkupikku wrote: post #209
vintagedave wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sad to see them fire him. I've seen far worse: I have always approached issues by asking for accountability and improvement. Frankly, he already did: he openly apologised. I was very happy with that, it demonstrated integrity and I remained respecting him. Even worse, > I have been sick in bed with a high fever and unable to reliably address it (still am sick) [0] In an earlier HN thread, I saw someone ask why Ar…

You're taking his fever dream excuse at face value, and I think you probably shouldn't. It reads like a lame excuse to deflect personal responsibility, a cynical face-saving tactic. If the illness was genuine, can he document that he advised management of this fever and they told him to submit an article anyway? It's not his bosses job to stick a thermometer up his ass every morning.

> You're taking his fever dream excuse at face value

Being sick with a bad fever is awful, it's a nightmare, and I cannot imagine making good decisions at the time.

I do not know if he was ordered to work while sick, but there are often implicit expectations in workplaces and this was a time-sensitive article.

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

#347

Post by vintagedave »

bmurphy1976 wrote: post #207
vintagedave wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sad to see them fire him. I've seen far worse: I have always approached issues by asking for accountability and improvement. Frankly, he already did: he openly apologised. I was very happy with that, it demonstrated integrity and I remained respecting him. Even worse, > I have been sick in bed with a high fever and unable to reliably address it (still am sick) [0] In an earlier HN thread, I saw someone ask why Ar…

He posted his not very impressive apology as images not text that is easily indexed. I do think that was purposeful and manipulative and very much makes me question his motivation. If I'm missing the original posting in text I'd sure like to know so I can correct this perception.

In fairness, people often do this in order to have a full statement visible, not a portion, not spread over multiple posts, etc.

I'm not saying you're wrong. I just caution that jumping to 'purposeful' (re not easily indexed), 'manipulative' etc is a very strong leap.

I also found the post by searching for a quote from it, so I think images with text likely are indexed. I can't imagine in 2026 they wouldn't be.

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

#348

Post by chrisjj »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #259
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 cannot disagree with you more strongly. Ars did own up to its mistake both in writing and in firing the author. The author himself fell on his sword in detail on Bluesky. Your only real complaint is that their published explanation wasn't subjectively good enough for you and that means it's sad to see them at this level?

> Ars did own up to its mistake both in writing

The Ars "own up" didn't even ID the article or the author.

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

#349

Post by etchalon »

bandrami wrote: post #18
ab_testing wrote: post #3

So they fired that author after the author had publicly apologized on Blue sky.

That absolutely should be career-ending for a journalist, apology or no

Not "career-ending" but definitely back a few paces.

This wasn't outright fabrication, it was a sloppy editorial workflow that resulted in hallucinations being published as fast (which is absolutely going to be get more and more common unless newsrooms develop specific guards against it).

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

#350

Post by chrisjj »

beloch wrote: post #149
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 inadvertently ended up with a paraphrased version of Shambaugh’s words rather than his actual words,” Edwards continued. He emphasized that the “text of the article was human-written by us, and this incident was isolated and is not representative of Ars‘ editorial standards." ---------- A reporter whose bailiwick is AI should have known that he needed to check any quotes an LLM spat out. The editorial staff should…

> beloch 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [–]

"I inadvertently ended up with a paraphrased version of Shambaugh’s words rather than his actual words,” Edwards continued. He emphasized that the “text of the article was human-written by us"

... except the bit that wasn't.

Nomination for Weasel Words of the Year award.

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