Comment on Ars Technica Fires Reporter After AI Controversy Involving Fabricated Quotes

• XLE@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  The comments here around this were so… Off. I guess nothing was certain, but we were supposed to believe that the author was too sick to write an article, but also writing an article and using an AI “tool” at the same time.

  Hindsight is 20/20, but popular defenses at the time were

  He wrote the article himself, he just got mixed up when experimenting with using an AI tool to help him extract quotes from a blog entry. (He is the head AI writer, so learning about these tools is his job.) It was nonetheless his failure to check the quotes he was copying from his note to make sure that he got them right… but an important bit of context is that he had COVID while doing all this.

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  • totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I was the one who wrote that comment, and it was not an attempt to excuse all of his actions but a response to the following comment:

    Someone deserves to be fired. Just imagine you’re paying someone to do a job and they just 100% completely outsource it to a machine in 5 seconds and then goes home.

    Here is the full comment that I wrote, including the part you snipped off at the end:

    He wrote the article himself, he just got mixed up when experimenting with using an AI tool to help him extract quotes from a blog entry. (He is the head AI writer, so learning about these tools is his job.) It was nonetheless his failure to check the quotes he was copying from his note to make sure that he got them right… but an important bit of context is that he had COVID while doing all this. Now, arguably he should have taken sick time off instead of trying to work through it (as he admits), but this would have cost him vacation time, and the fact that he even was forced into making this choice is a systemic problem that is not being sufficiently acknowledged.

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  • phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    If he had Covid, then why was he working?

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    • Lawnman23@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Sick time/PTO is a treasured resource here in the US. You don’t waste what little you might have on a silly thing like covid…

      /s

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  • SlurpingPus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    You know that the writer himself is quoted in the OP article, right?

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    • XLE@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Yes…? I saw his comments weeks ago, and smelled something off about the… and apparently Ars determined they were lacking.

      And now, “Edwards said he was unable to comment at this time.”

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• totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I did not downvote you—my instance does not allow or show downvotes, which is really nice!—but he was sick, and he did make a mistake, and him being fired does not make either of those things false.

  Also, a ton of people were piling on him in that thread, so you had plenty of company in calling him to be fired.

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  • artyom@piefed.social ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    but he was sick, and he did make a mistake, and him being fired does not make either of those things false.

    No, but those things also do not excuse his actions, which is why I said he should be, and ultimately was, fired. And I think that’s a positive thing.

    Also, a ton of people were piling on him in that thread, so you had plenty of company in calling him to be fired.

    The point is, plenty of people were downvoting me and defending him (such as yourself), which is what made it “controversial”. I was explaining this to the person who was confused as to why it was controversial.

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    • totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I agree that these things do not excuse his actions, but there was a tendency in that thread to paint him in the worst possible light, which I felt was uncalled for.

      I am said to have seen him be fired from Ars because I think there were mitigating circumstances—it is troubling that he felt the need to work while sick!—but on the other hand, given how badly he violated the trust placed in him, it is hard to see how Ars could have made any other choice.

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      • artyom@piefed.social ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Moreso than violating the trust placed in him is violating the trust readers put into the Ars publication.

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• deltaspawn0040@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Amazing. Just great.

  Imagine being confronted for lying and just going “hey it was an accident okay I didn’t MEAN to decieve people, I just used the machine known for deceiving people and willingly put my name on its deceptions and it deceived people!” and having people defend you.

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  • totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Actually, he completely admitted to and took full responsibility for his mistake; at no point did he offer an excuse, only an explanation.

    To the extent I was defending him, it was because people insisted on painting him in the worst possible light, and on misinterpreting his explanation as an excuse, not because I think that everything that he did was okay.

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    • deltaspawn0040@lemmy.zip ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      You do have a point, after reading the article. That’s a bit embarrassing, honestly.

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