The controversy about CNET and its AI-written articles has opened a Pandora’s box.

Usage artificial intelligence has skyrocketed on all fronts. While the focus is on ChatGPT and the image-generating algorithms, the reality is that integrating technology into workflows goes beyond a simple chatbot. The case that has gained momentum in recent days, publication of articles written by IA in CNET.

At the beginning of the month Futurism reported that the technology site published dozens of articles created using artificial intelligence. Automation goes beyond one or two paragraphs, as CNET he gave the green light for them to be written in full. More than 70 works have been signed under the pseudonym. CNET Moneyall focus on financial advice and presumably editorially verified.

The use of artificial intelligence to write full articles has generated controversy among the public and some members of the press. Far from fear of being replaced by AI in the short term, criticism is focused on lack of media transparency with its readers. Each post has a disclaimer that says “This article was created with AI and reviewed, reviewed and edited by our editorial team”, albeit in such small print that it will go unnoticed by the general public.

the veracity of the content has also been questioned.. Second article from Futurism he discovered that some of the articles contain bugs in the basic concepts of finance. Artificial intelligence that writes in CNET misinterprets information, which leads to incorrect calculation of loan interest or investment income.

Soon you won’t be able to tell if an article was created by a human or artificial intelligence.

Considering the controversy CNET advocated the use of automated tools when writing articles. Connie Guglielmo, editor-in-chief, published an article in which try making posts transparent with artificial intelligence from your financial section. Guglielmo mentions that they found errors such as incomplete company names, rearranged numbers, or incomprehensible language.

Noteworthy is the link to plagiarism. In accordance with edge, 41 out of 77 posts corrected and now turn on the warning: “We have replaced sentences that were not completely original.” Guglielmo showed that the editor was unable to find sentences or phrases similar to the original source. “We are developing additional ways to flag exact or similar matches with other published content identified by the AI ​​tool,” he said.

CNET He made his position clear and assured that they will continue to explore the possibilities of using artificial intelligence in their editorial workflow. The publication warns that Media companies and content creators need to know (and understand) the use of automated tools. Although your application is intended for secondary content, this does not guarantee that in the future we will not be able to distinguish whether the content was written by a human or artificial intelligence.

AI vs. content creators

The use of artificial intelligence as a tool to automate creative work has created friction on several fronts. On the one hand, we have the case of ChatGPT and its ban in some US schools. As teachers seek to adapt the educational model to take advantage of technology, some students of prestigious universities — like Stanford — admitted that they cheated using ChatGPT in final exams.

There is also a content issue. Copyright. To function properlyAI engines need to feed on and learn from content. Tools like Midjourney and Stability AI are already at the center of a copyright infringement lawsuit. A group of artists have accused companies of training their AI models with images without their consent.

In this arena, the fight against generative AI was most vigorously fought. For months, artists have held protests in communities such as artstation publishing images with the “NO AI” logo, forcing the network to apply filters and labels to automated content. Lawyers for Ortiz and company consider AI-generated images to be stolen content.

While court cases will be resolved, and the legislation will adapt to new changes, the fallacy of thinking of artificial intelligence as a passing fad. The explosion of ChatGPT and DALL-E is the beginning of a new era in which, like it or not, automated tools will become part of our daily lives. “We adapted to calculators and changed tests in math classes. Of course, this is a more extreme version,” said Sam Altman, CEO of Open AI.