Bots illustrated
After some of its content was revealed to be AI-produced and accredited to non-existent authors, the CEO of Sports Illustrated was fired by the magazine’s publisher, The Area Group, earlier this week.
Writer profiles on the 70-year-old periodical's site were found to include headshots from an AI-generated picture marketplace, and certain articles featured sweeping, bot-like statements, such as “your financial status translates to your value in society.”
Cog in the machine
Although the dawn of AI has spurred fears about the influence it could have on several sectors — particularly tech, journalism, and creative industries, in part fueling this year’s writers’ strike — many workers still hold an it-won't-happen-to-me attitude towards the ‘robot revolution’.
Indeed, one poll found that, while 52% of Americans think ChatGPT will have a major impact on journalists’ jobs over the next 20 years, just 19% said the same for their own vocations, with a perhaps-naive27% anticipating no impact on their work whatsoever.
Even with the threat of work-replacing, AI’s infinite use for work-enhancing might just be too tempting for many journos. Indeed, a recent LSE survey of newsroom workers found that 85% had experimented with the tech to help with tasks, while nearly three-quarters agreed that artificial intelligence presents new opportunities for the sector — a view shared by the NYT, which just hired its first editorial director of AI initiatives.
