Michigan Radio & TV Buzzboard

Sports Illustrated was caught using fake writers for articles using AI. SI's union condemned the publication and many current and former writers did too. What a downfall for what was once the gold standard of sports print journalism.

This is where a lot of writing is heading. It looks like their biggest mistake was attributing it to a fake author.

I'm thoroughly disgusted by this development.

The next thing you know, the pictures in their Swimsuit Edition will all be done by AI.

Bobbert wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 08, 2023 12:35 pm

This is where a lot of writing is heading. It looks like their biggest mistake was attributing it to a fake author.

I think it's already there, at least online.
How many articles you read online you're thinking get to the point.

Some baitclick titled something like "Best 5 BBQ Sauces". And the article just keeps going on and on without finally getting around to telling you what you wanted to know.

I can't help pondering if this is AI.

I own a business that involves content development. The use of AI has become a serious issue. The problem with AI is that if you skim it, the copy looks good. However, if you dig deeper in and read it, its basically well-disguised, superficial fluff. One thing I have done is tried to use it as a research assistant of sorts and loaded it with qualitative interview data and compared the findings to the findings from one of my analysts. What I noticed was that when I read them side-by-side, ChatGPT sounded better than my analyst. But when I read through the raw data and compared the two, the analyst's findings were much stronger.

Its because ChatGPT gives the facade of structure. It doesn't totally follow the rules, it will make things up, it will inaccurately report quotes, but it looks good. The researcher will be less uniform, but will be interested in reporting what needs to be reported, or at least what their bias leads them to believe needs to be reported.

Using AI as an assistant is something that deserves investment. Depending on AI to write valuable content will shortchange the consumer. They will be shortchanged not because a computer developed the content, but because an expert with strong communication skills will have the knowledge and experience to know what is valuable and impart wisdom onto other readers. Artificial intelligence cannot do this, at least to this point.

Now, if you are interested in determining whether content was developed by AI, there are several sites that claim to be able to predict the likelihood that content was created by AI. I've used these in the past and they're a headache. I will have content I know was created "by hand", but since some website reported a 40% likelihood of AI use, they will a.) believe that 40% of the product was written by AI, and then b.) even if it is a 40% likelihood, that is way too high. I've easily manipulated AI content into a score of 5-10% likelihood of AI before and have seen abstracts from studies published in the 1980s result in a 100% AI score, so take the results from things like originality.ai with a grain of salt.

Neckbeard wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 27, 2023 1:12 pm

Its because ChatGPT gives the facade of structure. It doesn't totally follow the rules, it will make things up, it will inaccurately report quotes, but it looks good.

So basically, it's a typical journalist?

Matt wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 27, 2023 1:49 pm

Neckbeard wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 27, 2023 1:12 pm

Its because ChatGPT gives the facade of structure. It doesn't totally follow the rules, it will make things up, it will inaccurately report quotes, but it looks good.

So basically, it's a typical journalist?

I would say that the icon you get when ChatGPT is responding to you should be an image of Mitch Albom, but that would be an insult to ChatGPT.

Neckbeard wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 27, 2023 1:59 pm

Matt wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 27, 2023 1:49 pm

Neckbeard wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 27, 2023 1:12 pm

Its because ChatGPT gives the facade of structure. It doesn't totally follow the rules, it will make things up, it will inaccurately report quotes, but it looks good.

So basically, it's a typical journalist?

I would say that the icon you get when ChatGPT is responding to you should be an image of Mitch Albom, but that would be an insult to ChatGPT.

I love it!!! So true!

Myth Albom.

Kidding aside, I don’t understand how that guy hasn’t been ridden out of media with as many fuck ups as he has had. Zero respect for Mitch. Plenty of people who are better and stick to the facts. We don’t need him.

My team uses AI for all kinds of content. At the end of the day, $40,000 will only hire so good of a writer these days. $40,000 will get you a good offshore content team that checks the final product.