CNET Published AI-Generated Stories. Then Its Staff Pushed Back
In November, honorable Tech outlet CNET began publishing articles generated by artificial intelligence on topics such as personal finance, which proved successful full of mistakes. Today, the human editorial staff have joined forces and are calling on their bosses to ensure better working conditions and more transparency and accountability in the use of AI.
“In this time of instability, our diverse content teams need industry-standard job protections, fair compensation, editorial independence, and a say in decision-making, especially as automated technology threatens our jobs and reputation,” the CNET Media Workers Union mission statement states whose more than 100 members include writers, editors, video producers and other content creators.
While organizing efforts began before CNET management began AI adoption, its employees could become one of the first unions to force their bosses to set limits on the use of content created by generative AI services like ChatGPT become. Any agreement with CNET’s parent company, Red Ventures, could help set a precedent for how companies are using the technology. Several digital media companies have recently cut staff, including BuzzFeed and sports illustrated At the same time, we use AI-generated content. Red Ventures did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In Hollywood, AI-generated writing has sparked a workers’ uprising. Striking screenwriters want studios to agree to ban AI authorship and never ask writers to adapt AI-generated screenplays. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers rejected this proposal, instead offering to hold annual meetings to discuss technological advances. The writers and staff of CNET are both represented by the Writers Guild of America.
While CNET bills itself as “Your Guide to a Brighter Future,” late last year the 30-year-old publication blundered awkwardly into the new world of generative AI that can create text or images. Science and technology website Futurism launched in January revealed that in November, CNET had quietly started publishing AI-authored explanations such as “What is a cell and how does it work?” The stories ran under the heading “CNET Money Staff,” and readers had to mouse over them to learn the articles were written “using automation technology.”
A spate of embarrassing revelations followed. The edge reported that more than half of the AI-generated stories contained factual errors, leading to a problem at CNET Sometimes tedious Corrections to 41 of his 77 bot-authored articles. The tool the editors used also seemed to be there plagiarized Work by competing news outlets, as is common with generative AI.
Later the editor-in-chief at the time, Connie Guglielmo wrote that a plagiarism detection tool was misused or failed and that the site developed additional checks. A former employee required that her byline should be removed from the site as she feared AI could be used to update her stories to drive more traffic from Google search results.
In response to negative publicity for CNET’s AI project, Guglielmo released one Article He said that the outlet tested an “internally developed AI engine” and that “AI engines, just like humans, make mistakes.” Still, she promised to make some changes to the site’s disclosure and citation policies and use her experiment to to advance robot authorship. In March, she stepped down from her role as editor-in-chief and now leads the outlet’s AI editorial strategy.
