It’s worth knowing that this was in some kind of externally-authored, paid advertising insert. It’s a bad look regardless, but this isn’t AI writing the news, but AI writing the ads in-between the news.
It reflects poorly on the Sun-Times as a business, but shouldn’t directly affect your feelings about their journalism and editorial staff, who weren’t responsible for this.
Well then you are lost. “Fuck the people in charge who did this and fuck their workers who had nothing to do with it.” If your boss sucks, should I blame you for their mistakes?
Perhaps I wasn’t clear. The journalists and editorial staff at the Chicago Sun-Times aren’t media enterprises, they are human persons. I’m not asking you to imagine yourself as a corporation, I’m asking you to imagine that you are a person. If you were a person and your boss did something bad without your knowledge or consent, are you, a person, to blame for your boss’ actions?
No, I understand what you mean and to that point yes you’re right I shouldn’t hold the employees of the Chicago Sun-Times accountable for using AI slop in their paper.
But that’s just not the way my - or anyone’s - mind processes it. “The Chicago Sun-Times” for all intents and purposes is a monolith which produces a newspaper. “They” made a very unfortunate decision to allow AI content in that paper. It has damaged their reputation.
So next time I see “Chicago Sun-Times” I won’t be thinking about the person who does the layouts or the regional sales person or any of that, I’ll be thinking “oh yeah, they got bitten hard by a stupid decision to allow AI slop in their paper”.
Which interestingly enough implies that they are having so much trouble selling advertising, that they are making up nonsense and pretending it is advertising, so their remaining advertisers aren’t spooked away by the ghost town / dead mall atmosphere.
It appears that the complicated nature of newspaper publishing is a confusing factor here. The Sun-Times did not generate/“write” this piece at all. It was written completely externally to the Sun-Times by a separate entity, King Features Syndicate. The CST incorrectly assumed that King Features or its owner, Hearst Magazines, would have their editorial teams vet the material they authored/“authored” before publication. Since this is self-evidently wrong, the CST has changed its policy and now editorial staff will have final approval over externally-authored pieces, which they did not have before.
Interesting. I guess the question remains, why did they want to print and insert this thing at all?
The episode has shaken up the staff of the paper, who told Ars Technica they fear (the well-deserved) reputational harm (they will suffer because of publishing) Buscaglia’s error-riddled work.
FTFT
I mean I’m not trying to blame the people in the newsroom, they’re doing their best. But yes I think it’s an extremely valid indictment of the organizational structure at work and its ability to produce anything trustworthy.
It’s worth knowing that this was in some kind of externally-authored, paid advertising insert. It’s a bad look regardless, but this isn’t AI writing the news, but AI writing the ads in-between the news.
It reflects poorly on the Sun-Times as a business, but shouldn’t directly affect your feelings about their journalism and editorial staff, who weren’t responsible for this.
Sorry, but that’s exactly what it does.
Well then you are lost. “Fuck the people in charge who did this and fuck their workers who had nothing to do with it.” If your boss sucks, should I blame you for their mistakes?
If I’m a media enterprise, probably, yeah.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear. The journalists and editorial staff at the Chicago Sun-Times aren’t media enterprises, they are human persons. I’m not asking you to imagine yourself as a corporation, I’m asking you to imagine that you are a person. If you were a person and your boss did something bad without your knowledge or consent, are you, a person, to blame for your boss’ actions?
No, I understand what you mean and to that point yes you’re right I shouldn’t hold the employees of the Chicago Sun-Times accountable for using AI slop in their paper.
But that’s just not the way my - or anyone’s - mind processes it. “The Chicago Sun-Times” for all intents and purposes is a monolith which produces a newspaper. “They” made a very unfortunate decision to allow AI content in that paper. It has damaged their reputation.
So next time I see “Chicago Sun-Times” I won’t be thinking about the person who does the layouts or the regional sales person or any of that, I’ll be thinking “oh yeah, they got bitten hard by a stupid decision to allow AI slop in their paper”.
Which interestingly enough implies that they are having so much trouble selling advertising, that they are making up nonsense and pretending it is advertising, so their remaining advertisers aren’t spooked away by the ghost town / dead mall atmosphere.
It appears that the complicated nature of newspaper publishing is a confusing factor here. The Sun-Times did not generate/“write” this piece at all. It was written completely externally to the Sun-Times by a separate entity, King Features Syndicate. The CST incorrectly assumed that King Features or its owner, Hearst Magazines, would have their editorial teams vet the material they authored/“authored” before publication. Since this is self-evidently wrong, the CST has changed its policy and now editorial staff will have final approval over externally-authored pieces, which they did not have before.
Interesting. I guess the question remains, why did they want to print and insert this thing at all?
FTFT
I mean I’m not trying to blame the people in the newsroom, they’re doing their best. But yes I think it’s an extremely valid indictment of the organizational structure at work and its ability to produce anything trustworthy.