Top news app caught sharing “entirely false” AI-generated news - eviltoast
  • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Sometimes, the AI gets the little details wrong.

    In school we always get an assignment to compare the same story in different newspapers. It was amazing to see them all have different details. And that was before the internet existed. So AI here isn’t better, just cheaper.

    Other times, the AI wholly fabricates events.

    We call that Boris Johnson.

    • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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      6 months ago

      I mean, the AI is worse. It’s literally impossible to not be worse, it would need a 100% accuracy to the sample data while also never hallucinating, that’s pretty much completely impossible.

  • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz
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    6 months ago

    Take an article from a reputable publisher, an article for a subject that you are expert in.

    Read it and make note of facts they got right and got wrong.

    Now apply that same ratio to articles where you have little or no expertise.

    These guys are just speed running th at to its inevitable end.

    • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      Take an article from a reputable publisher, an article for a subject that you are expert in.

      Read it and make note of facts they got right and got wrong.

      This is what got me to shake free of some podcasters I placed far too much faith in at one point in the past. When I realized how slanted and fucked their opinion was on things I knew about, it put all their other opinions in a much different light.

      • Same here used to love Sam Harris and to some extent Joe Rogan, like 2016’ish. Then they got into that whole intellectual dark web nonsense and stayed political instead of trippy brain science and meditation stuff, they started talking about international politics and they are both fucking bigots. Really turned me off hearing Sam basically support the genocide of Palestine.

        • Wiz@midwest.social
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          6 months ago

          I listened to Sam for a little while, but then he got stuck on Genetics & IQ back in about 2017-18.

          I was like - OK, but do you account for any other differences, like poverty and affluence rates? Nope, he could only fathom the two factors: “race in, IQ out - so people of African heritage are dumb”, because his expert said that, he thought it too.

        • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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          6 months ago

          I don’t even want admit who it was. (It wasn’t Rush or Hannity, more stealth than those guys but I should have known better anyway.) 😬

        • foggenbooty@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I think it’s important to recognize when someone holds a different opinion/conclusion and when they are repeating misinformation or have facts wrong.

          I can’t listen to Joe at all because he doesn’t bring anything intellectually to thr table and prompts pseudoscience. Sam on the other hand is brilliant and tries hard to bring facts to the table. However, no one is “perfect” or will share all of our opinions/conclusions.

          I for one am not onboard with Sam in regards to the Isreal/Palestine conflict, some if his opinions on guns, etc. But I still enjoy listening because even when those opinions clash with mine he lays out why he has that opinion and I can see he gave it some thought but has a different conclusion than me.

          The only reason I write all this is to say that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to blend misleading facts and differing opinions into one.

  • davidgro@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Speaking of details wrong:

    most downloaded local news app

    • 50,000,000+ downloads

    Meanwhile Google News (which does local):

    • 1,000,000,000+ downloads
    • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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      6 months ago

      Eh, for a while google news was a bake-in app. I’m okay excluding those figures.

      • davidgro@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Yeah, but “2nd place” (if it’s even that) is so far down that many of us including me haven’t even heard of it before.

  • Alphane Moon@lemmy.ml
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    6 months ago

    This is a bit of cliche, but still relevant to our current times:

    The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.

    Antonio Gramsci (Italian Marxist philospher from the turn of the century)

      • Alphane Moon@lemmy.ml
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        6 months ago

        I think there are times when it is more relevant, e.g. initial change from a feudal/agrarian model to industrialization. By all accounts this was perhaps the biggest, most impactful change in human history.

        One could argue that we are now witnessing a similar transition with respect to the information age.

        At any rate, this was a somewhat glib statement on my part. :)

        • FiskFisk33@startrek.website
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          6 months ago

          that was a particularly large one, but lots of people old enough at any given time will feel the world is changing and that it’s somehow dangerous.

          I agree, some of the time the changes are much larger than others, but there will always at any given time be people that feel this is true about their particular time.

  • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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    6 months ago

    It’s almost like they are trying to shoehorn AI into anything and everything regardless of whether it is a good fit, and regardless of whether the technology is ready, and regardless of the outcome. Like blockchain. And IoT. And Angry Birds. (j/k on that last one. Kinda.)

    But that’s none of my business, I’m just a puppet frog drinking tea.

      • Alphane Moon@lemmy.ml
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        6 months ago

        Oh wow, I did not read the source Reuters article and yeah it’s a Chinese project.

        This is the kind of stuff that should make Americans evaluate whether their orthodox and somewhat parochial approach to “free speech” (the polemical definition as opposed to the broad concept) needs updating to reflect modern realities.

        Even before AI and digitization, there were many examples of how an American interpretation of free speech was clearly lacking, but this AI spam and strategic methods used by russia/China are going to make these deficiencies a much more pressing matter.

    • d00phy@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Like cloud, too. Behind the Bastards did an episode on these trends. He had an interesting take. I guess “AI” and/or the tech bros who pump and dump these tech trends one after the other were the bastards.

  • ObamaBinLaden@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I usually respect ars technical for writing great stories. This time, however, they could’ve included the name of the app so it wasn’t clickbaity. It’s newsbreak for those wondering.

    • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org
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      6 months ago

      Uh… The very first sentence mmmmm

      After the most downloaded local news app in the US, NewsBreak, shared an AI-generated story about a fake New Jersey shooting last Christmas Eve, New Jersey police had to post a statement online to reassure troubled citizens that the story was “entirely false,” Reuters reported.

      • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Right, but the headline doesn’t include that to bait you into clicking the article to get that information. Just like every other click bait article about android app issues.

        • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org
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          6 months ago

          I usually respect ars technical for writing great stories. This time, however, they could’ve included the name of the app so it wasn’t clickbaity

          so now youre changing your requirements after your first statement is shown to be flawed? The headline rarely conveys what you are suggesting.

          • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            so now youre changing your requirements after your first statement is shown to be flawed?

            L. O. L.

            First of all, my story can’t change, since that’s my first comment in this thread. Second, reading comprehension is your friend in situations like this. From what you quoted:

            I usually respect ars technical for writing great stories.

            This time, however, they could’ve included the name of the app so it wasn’t clickbaity

            Those are two independent clauses, referring to content and headline separately. That would be clear if you consider the definition of click bait:

            Clickbait typically refers to the practice of writing sensationalized or misleading headlines in order to attract clicks on a piece of content. It often relies on exaggerating claims or leaving out key information in order to encourage traffic.

            Their wording a bit confusing if you’re not reading closely, but their original point still stands. The content is generally good, but the headline is clickbaity.

            The headline rarely conveys what you are suggesting.

            Just because click bait is common doesn’t mean it isn’t click bait.

              • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                Lol, ok kid. I’m not going to argue with you all day because you misinterpreted someone else’s confusingly worded statement.

                I don’t have time to deal with that kind of fragile ego.

              • NιƙƙιDιɱҽʂ@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                They aren’t the original poster. you’re just yelling at some passerby who was simply trying to tell you that you misinterpreted the original comment…

  • xenoclast@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Is it a “top” news service if I’ve never heard of it?

    I’ve seen false AI gen stories reported by Reuters itself for pity sake.