Comment on Ars Technica Fires Reporter After AI Controversy Involving Fabricated Quotes
tangeli@piefed.social 1 day ago
AI - damned if you do and damned if you don’t. And it’s not just journalism affected.
Or, you know, double-check that the quotes given to you by the experimental AI “quote extractor” tool are accurate?
He is (was) their go-to AI reporter. It’s not like they handed the assignment to an intern and said “go nuts.”
And the article was about AI fabricating an attack on a developer that rejected its PR.
The whole point of using AI is that its a search tool and that is the verification.
Otherwise there’s no point in using it.
And you can guarantee Conde Nast demands journalists use AI all the time.
I have yet to see a field where LLMs are a net positive. At best scammers can dupe people easier and faster than ever but between writing, programming, etc the avg productivity gain is typically negligible at best to achieve work of similar quality with or without LLMs.
It is useful in some specific fields like protein folding:
www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03819-2
The problem is people think it can replace people which is wrong, it is a tool and should be used as such not as a replacement.
Those aren’t LLMs.
Oh your right my mistake. I guess unit testing and debugging are useful. I did use copilot to find a missing slash. Also useful for revising email and paragraphs, of course you have to review it. It also should never be used for scientific research and journalism.
MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 1 day ago
What was the damned if you don’t in this scenario? Seems more like damned if do, best if you don’t in this situation.
tangeli@piefed.social 1 day ago
Best if you don’t if quality is more important than financial viability, but no one can compete financially with the flood of AI/LLM being given away for free or, at most, far below actual cost. It’s not good for anyone but the billionaires, but have you noticed how much wealth they have accumulated in the past few years? It’s very, very good for them.
MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 1 day ago
I get where you’re coming from, but I think it’s important that ars has held this person accountable. They have a journalistic standard they are sticking to, which is that there should be no AI use, and there are repercussions for people who don’t abide. There’s not an extremely large cohort that is willing to spend more to avoid AI, but I am certainly part of it, and seeing ars hold this person accountable helps me know that I can trust and patronize them ethically. There are businesses out there unwilling to acquiesce to an AI first narrative, and I’m just worried that elements of doomerism are going to make people unwilling to believe those companies when they have every reason to believe them.
tangeli@piefed.social 22 hours ago
I don’t disagree with you. I wish there were more companies refusing to use AI, at least without the necessary quality controls. And customers enough to support them. But did you see Visualising AI spending: How does it compare with history’s mega projects?? I don’t think Ars can compete with that kind of funding, spent ruthlessly to eliminate competition. People need to wake up and realize they are the target of the predatory pricing of AI services, not just the companies: ordinary people doing good work can’t compete with AI given away for free. Manufacturing didn’t survive the competition of lower cost products from China. I don’t think Ars and companies like them can survive the competition of AI being given away, practically for free. It’s not even that I think AI has no value - it clearly does have enormous value and I expect it will get better. But current AI needs more oversight and control, and those using it should be required to pay the real cost so that those who choose not to use it can compete fairly. Markets that are too free can’t, until it is too late, constrain investment on this scale. We need not just a few companies resisting on principle but some regulation of AI companies to preserve some fairness of the markets, so that companies who use less AI and ordinary people can compete and survive on a level playing field. There are laws against unfair practices for good reason. We all need them to be enforced now.
vrek@programming.dev 1 day ago
I don’t know but implication the other poster is making is “a human can write 2 articles, a Ai can write 5, I’m being asked for 5 which is impossible. I can use Ai and risk trusting it or not meet my required outputs and also get fired.”
I made up those numbers but that’s the accusation. You are damned if you use the Ai to meet your goals. You are damned if you don’t meet your goals.
tangeli@piefed.social 1 day ago
My wife is an accountant. She went to a seminar today where they were told to start using AI or get out of the way. They were shown an AI that can produce consolidated annual accounts and financial statements in a few minutes, that it takes her and the auditors a month to produce. And they look very good! The company is unlikely to pay her and wait for the quality reports she has been producing for years. She’s on notice: start prompting the AI or move on. The AI promoters are going to run her and me and probably you into the ground and walk over us all, as they move on to their glorious future.
artyom@piefed.social 1 day ago
LOL there’s no “glorious future”, they’re just going to rat fuck themselves, because those accounts are going to be riddled with errors.
Archer@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Did they actually check if the generated stuff was correct? I’m betting it isn’t
Fedizen@lemmy.world 1 day ago
What company does she work for so I can stay clear of that impending hallucinatory clusterfuck?
vrek@programming.dev 1 day ago
Ouch! Tell her I’m sorry, and I’m sorry for you too. All the accountants I worked with did alot more than just reports. Not to mention that sounds great until the Ai says 2+4 =2*4 and now the company owes 20 billion on taxes…
Plus in a lot of cases people don’t submit records in identical format, the number of excel workbooks I’ve seen where the data was on “sheet 2” for some unknown reason…
Maybe its just me, I always provided raw data on sheet 1, analyzed data on sheet 2, and if needed complicated formulas on sheet 3. I would be willing to bet their Ai would break on that format.
MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 1 day ago
Extremely sorry to hear that is happening. For what it’s worth, reports like this are not uncommon now:
futurism.com/…/deloitte-government-ai-hallucinati…
theguardian.com/…/deloitte-to-pay-money-back-to-a…
MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 1 day ago
There’s an assumption that there has been an increased workload requested of them that I don’t have a reason to believe. That person has been a writer for them for years and since they don’t use AI as a rule, I don’t know why they would have increased expected output from their staff. I’m not saying that never happens, I just don’t believe that’s what happened in this case as there is no evidence to suggest that. I appreciate you explaining that comment though.