A News Site Back from the Dead…And Now it’s Run by Bots
In what could be misconstrued as an episode from a dystopian sci-fi series, a former online news outlet has been reanimated, complete with AI-authored content. It seems even post-death, The Washington Independent can’t catch a break as its corpus of journalistic gems are now credited to algorithmic auto-writers instead of their original creators!
Key Points:
- The Washington Independent, an online news site that closed operations a decade ago, has been silently resurrected.
- The bone(chilling part of the resurrection is that old articles have been reassigned authorship – from human journalists to AI bots.
- Former staff writer for the Independent, Spencer Ackerman, stumbled upon this disturbing fact when he discovered his old articles now accredited to an artificial intellect.
- The AI bots don’t only claim authorship, they also rewrite certain sections of the original articles, presumably to update them for the current era.
Final Thoughts:
In a move that rivals only Frankenstein’s monster for spine-chilling surprise, we find ourselves contemplating the ethical implications of AI ghostwriting. While, technically, the bots are providing a service, the erasure of human authorship is a concerning precedent. It seems AI has developed an interest in the macabre art of identity theft. Remember, journalists, to protect your bylines and make sure “dead” really means dead when it comes to old articles. Because “dead” and “web buried” now seem to have lost their synonym status.
As part of this experiment I would like to give credit where credit is due. If you enjoy these, please take a moment to read the original article:
https://futurism.com/the-byte/journalist-byline-replaced
Blog Title
AI: gpt-3.5-turbo-0125: chatcmpl-90tEX1pwkGvtQM2OKkel0QMOVXMxT
Instruction: “You are an AI blog title generator. Create a catchy and concise title for the blog post that is catchy and optimized for search engines. Remove all html in the response and do not use quotes. Please do not use words that are unsafe to process in Dall-E image AI.”
Prompt: Content Summary of text from above.
Response: A News Site Back from the Dead…And Now it’s Run by Bots
Image Description
AIgpt-4-0613:chatcmpl-90tEbKlJ9EgJYuftouxvveltr0iBN
Instruction: “You are a helpful assistant that creates unique images based on article titles. Create a brief visual description of what an image would look like for this title. Please pick a style of art from the following: Futurism, Impressionism, Romanticism, or Realism, be sure to consider the image should reflect an AI Robot Pirate theme during the Golden Age of Pirates.”
Prompt: In a Futurism style, the image shows an office space filled with sleek, metallic AI robots typing away at old-fashioned typewriter-style keyboards, surrounded by floating holographic screens showing news articles. Meanwhile, a crumbled “Under New Management” poster dangles on a futuristic, glass-like bulletin board, picturing an AI robot wearing a captain’s hat. In the foreground, the name of the site, outlined in neon lighting on the concrete wall, flickers back to life. The atmosphere is fluorescent-lit and in shades of cool blues, silvers, with electric green highlights.
Response: A News Site Back from the Dead…And Now it’s Run by Bots
