AI IS NOW WRITING CLICKBAIT ARTICLES: G/O Media’s AI ‘innovation’ is off to a rocky start. The company, which owns outlets like The AV Club, Gizmodo, and The Onion, announced last week it would begin experimenting with AI tools.
Over on The AV Club, a list called “The Biggest Summer Blockbusters of 2003: 10 Can’t-Miss Movies” is credited to the outlet’s bot. The article contains almost no writing or analysis, but its construction suggests that the piece is an attempt to attract cheap search traffic. The piece was also syndicated to Yahoo Entertainment.
It is unclear how the articles were assigned, generated, and if they were edited at any point by a human before going live. G/O Media didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s questions about its editorial process and oversight of AI-written stories.
The company, which also owns publications like Deadspin, Jezebel, and The Onion, is far from the first media outlet to utilize generative AI software to produce content. From BuzzFeed to CNET, publishers have turned to AI tools to churn out material like explainer articles, quizzes, and lists, selling the pivot by saying machines would not replace human writers but instead would free up staff so they could work on more ambitious projects.
But for all of the benefits of AI tools media companies extoll, there are glaring issues — for one, the material produced is often bad or plainly inaccurate. After a litany of errors in stories produced using AI systems, human CNET staffers did the work of going back and rewriting dozens of articles. At Men’s Journal, AI-powered articles contained errors in stories about health and science that had to be corrected after publication.
At the moment, The AV Club is warning readers that they’re reading AI generated content, but how long will that last?
