G/O Media, a major online media company that runs publications including Gizmodo, Kotaku, Quartz, Jezebel, and Deadspin, has announced that it will begin a “modest test” of AI content on its sites.
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The trial will include “producing just a handful of stories for most of our sites that are basically built around lists and data,” Brown wrote. “These features aren’t replacing work currently being done by writers and editors, and we hope that over time if we get these forms of content right and produced at scale, AI will, via search and promotion, help us grow our audience.”
So let me make sure I understand this: Bad writers writing bad articles for bad websites to be replaced by bad AI writing bad articles on bad websites?
Long story short, nothing of value is being lost.
I feel like this ends up being a slippery slope. The content generated will be below average, but might be just as good as some of the normal reporting on these sites. We might just barely notice it, which is good enough, but then we get used to it and they think we’re okay with it… and then they get rid of more editors and more writers and before you know it it’s all AI drivel and no solid journalism. Because people were just complacent.
I’m going to have to disagree here. What is the measurement of average, because what Gizmodo, Kotaku, et al have been delivering for quite some time is crap. The bar is pretty low. There has been no solid journalism in that space since all the half-way decent writers moved on to bigger and better things years ago, or retired, and people like me started blocking them.
So a few writers who nobody knows the name of; when more in their self-written bio at the end of the article contains as many letters as the articles itself have to get on it or move on? Oh well. It’s not complacency, video game journalism is self-serving. No wait, its a dumpster fire. They need to discover journalism, and integrity. Or else, well, see OPs title.
That’s basically what I’m saying here. The bar is so low there, that people won’t notice the switch. Then the higher ups take that as a “well people must like what we’re doing, so let’s go completely AI” and others will see that it’s cheaper and “obviously working for Gawker, so we’ll do it too!” And the slope continues toward places that actually have some decent journalism.
I just worry it’s the perfect entry point that no one will notice and send us all on a downward spiral.