More media outlets are using AI to write articles, if not as aggressively as others. VentureBeat editorial director Michale Nuñez tells Bloomberg his publication is using Microsoft’s Bing Chat to help edit and write stories. Reporters are encouraged to slip AI-written “sentences and fragments” into articles so long as they’re accurate and independently verifiable.
The OpenAI-powered tech is akin to having “another person on the team,” Nuñez says. It theoretically summarizes content in seconds instead of hours. VentureBeat doesn’t disclose the use of AI content provided it’s limited and authentic, but also doesn’t intend to create whole articles using the technology.
Word surfaced in January that CNET had been using AI to produce entire financial explainer articles since November. Although characterized as a trial, over half of the articles required at least minor corrections. Some effectively plagiarized their sources. It also wasn’t clear that algorithms had produced the pieces.
Generative AI like Bing Chat, ChatGPT and Google Bard has become increasingly popular as a creative tool, for search results and even for entertainment. However, there are ethical concerns that include plagiarism, basic accuracy and cheating. There are also questions of trust — should creators disclose uses of AI, even if it’s minor and undetectable? While the broader news industry isn’t expected to completely replace human writers, there are worries AI might be used to reduce the need for real people.
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Jon Fingas