In a world that's increasingly fake and more and more dependent on computers to
tell us what to think, and even take over thinking for us, the advancement of AI,
artificial intelligence, is making the problem much worse.
On Friday, Senate announced that it would stop using AI to write its articles for
now, which means it was using AI to write its articles.
Last week, online marketing expert Gael Breton tweeted that a CNET article
about financial planning came with a disclaimer that it was quote,
generated using automation technology.
Futurism picked up the story, reporting CNET had been quietly publishing over
70 SEO-friendly explainer articles about finance since November 2022.
What followed was backlash about using artificial intelligence to generate
stories without some kind of explicit announcement for achieving high SEO
ranking as well as scrutiny over the accuracy of the articles.
The AI generated articles are listed as being written by CNET money staff.
With a disclaimer originally saying this article was
generated using automation technology and thoroughly edited and
fact checked by an editor on our editorial staff.
Criticism to the disclaimer was insufficient and too subtle,
let alone unethical to use AI in the first place swiftly followed.
Now the author is listed as CNET Money, and
disclaimer has been changed to this article was assisted by an AI engine and
reviewed, fact-checked and edited by our editorial staff.
Original publications to the stories contained errors such as
confusing the terms APR and APY.
And incorrectly calculating that a savings account with $10,000 and
a 3% interest rate would accrue $10,300 would actually accrue only $300.
The AI technology was created by private equity firm Red Ventures which owns CNET,
in addition to Bankrate, The Points Guy and CreditCards.com.
Publishing content about finance and banking is lucrative for
media sites because it draws lots of inquiry through search engines,
which is then converted into profit through affiliate links.
Optimizing content for search is standard practice in digital media, but
using a bot to identify and churn out stories for
the explicit purpose of monetization blurs the lines of ethical editorial practice.
When a media site prioritizes money making content over relevant and timely news,
it calls the site's integrity and credibility into question.
In response, CNET published a post explaining how its use of
AI was intended to quote, see if the tech can help our busy staff of reporters and
editors with their job to cover topics from a 360° perspective.
The justifications that technology might free up time and
energy to focus on deeper reporting and analysis.
And they're not alone, the associated Press has also been using AI to gather,
analyze news, transcribe video and write copy.
That's to say while Senate has paused its controversial tool for now,
it's not the only one experimenting with this technology and
it certainly won't be the last we hear of it.
So robots are taking over, humans are barely wanted anymore.
I was fully replaced by a robot 14 years ago, a lot of people don't know that.
Did you know that?
>> I did, some of our hosts are also robots.
[LAUGH] Okay, [LAUGH] all right, so look guys,
here's the saddest part of the story.
What difference does it make?
So, if you can't tell the difference between the widget writing the article and
and for the corporate world, everything's a widget, right?
The reporter is a widget, the AI that writes it in the place
of the reporter is a widget, and so, they both write the same article.
So maybe there's a little bit of a mistake,
more mistakes than the AI generated one.
Now, that's why it's more depressing because journalism is supposed to
challenge the powerful, it's supposed to be the fourth estate that
challenges the government and holds it accountable.
But since they don't do that anyway, then it's just a computer program
writing in the article either way, it's all copy and paste.
The editor tells you, go kiss the powerful zas and this is how you do it, and they've
got standard ways to do it, and then the poor guy that's, it's okay, all right.
And the rich were so great and the government was wonderful, and
they're all honest, okay, I handed it in.
You get a computer to do it, you get a guy to do it, what difference does it make?
If they did Real journalism, the AI produced articles would have stood out,
like that one is challenging and that one is holding people accountable,
why are these weird ones just standard, right?
You couldn't tell the AI once because none of them challenge the powerful,
none of them are doing their job.
That's why this story is way more damning than you realized.
And look at the way they even cover this story,
[LAUGH] they say, this blurs the lines of ethics.
What do you mean blurs the lines?
It's a non-human writing an article pretending to be human and
writing it in a super crappy way that it's just supposed to help the powerful.
What part of it is blurring the lines?
Now you're way past the line.
>> Well, they would have written it more strongly, but
even this article criticizing it was written by a robot.
>> But it might have been..
>> But it could have been, >> It could have been.
>> It could have been.
I mean, I just think even on a grand [INAUDIBLE] because even if it's for
explainer articles and it's not one and it is to free up resources, at the very least
you have to be incredibly transparent about it and maybe even make it a feature.
But I just think it brings up the larger question that's been really troubling me
is, remember, five years ago Elon musk was one of the first people talking about
AI is coming and he was ethically concerned about it.
And he said, I don't know if we should really be investing in this.
We just abandoned that debate and let it happen.
Of course we did because there's a profit motive behind it.
And now we have ChatGPT that I haven't tried yet but everybody's telling
me all of these people who are who are writers who are opinion makers,
they have a ChatGPT window open at all times.
School children having their papers written by chat Gpt.
We all ready crossed the Rubicon.
>> Yeah, eventually we won't even remember how to do the original product,
yeah, and the computers will be smarter than us.
And they'll be like, hey, dum, dum, this is how you write an article and
be like, okay, but can you just write it for me?
>> Idiocracy in every way, it's wild.
Yeah, but by the way, the powerful then also gain an advantage out of that because
you're dumbing down the population.
So first thing that you see, if you ever visit a plantation, and
I saw this in Charleston talking about a bunch of times is their
number one rule was do not educate the slaves.
Now, they pretended, yeah, there were inferior to us and
they're not even quite human and we could own them as property, etc.
But meanwhile they knew that of course they're just like us.
If you educate them, then they'll have power.
So they're like whatever you do, do not give them an education.
And in a sense we're doing that on a global scale now,
where nobody can function anymore without all of this computers and ai, etc.
And with the modern slavery, that is, the prison industrial complex.
I mean,
we're not a far cry then from public defenders being replaced by AI lawyers.
You've been assigned a robot lawyer, but
he didn't understand the humanity of what I'm explaining here.
Sorry, processed, jail, rest of your life, 20 years gone, whatever it might be and
you don't have a recourse.
I mean, it sounds even still silly to say it now, but clearly it's not.
>> No, but wait a minute.
Journalists are supposed to have the most human reactions.
They're supposed to be like, look at what's happening to the population,
look at the citizens and we're gonna be, were outraged when we're fighting back or
here's a story that is gonna shock the conscience or
something that we have to address, we have to fix.
This is the story, everything is great, status quo was wonderful.
All the sheep go back into the lines, we are in control.
>> And did you see the new video of that robot that can do now jumps and twists and
grab delicate items and solve problems and climb make a step ladder for
himself to go bring the tool.
It's unreal, the thing can flip and jump.
I mean, you have both pieces.
You have a physically capable imposing, incredibly capable and dexterous robot and
mind robots that can basically do whatever they want to replicate human thought.
There's no humanity left there anymore,.
>> Let alone the killing robots that have started and
they're building at the pentagon, we've showed the videos before.
Look, you all ready have the drones that are lethal, right?
And obviously you see in the war in Ukraine and Russia, etc.
But then there are basically land drones is the one way of thinking about
it that are also weaponized.
They can also go anywhere.
And then we've shown you the videos the Pentagon released it videos of these
much larger robots that are weaponized.
In the beginning of my favorite part of that was the Pentagon is like, no,
they're not weaponized now.
You're the Pentagon, you think we don't know why you're building it,
[LAUGH], right?
These robots will come over and do your taxes,
not the ones the Pentagon's building.
>> Is that what they mean by TurboTax.
>> [LAUGH] That's what it is.
>> But it's so true, it's all serves to dehumanize because all ready war became,
it's not just to reduce casualties on our side to reduce humanity on both sides.
You have people engaged in wars on our behalf from here from states in
the Midwest literally like this, [SOUND] just killed some people.
>> Yeah, look honestly, one of our hosts talked about that.
Ben Rollo was a drone operator and he couldn't do it anymore because it was so
dehumanizing and and it's scarring.
And so, yeah, you sit across the world somewhere, you press a button,
Somebody dies or many people die.
So that's real, it's happening now.
And then finally look guys, when it comes back to journalism,
everything is sleight of hand.
We talked about how crossing the sleight of hand all the time and
tricks his audience and conflating two different things, etc.
But make sure media does it too, eemember like we are objective journalists and
walter Cronkite is the gold standard.
And everybody knew him because he was objective, and
was a robot that didn't care about anything and you have to be dispassionate,
never care about the issues, that's what a journalist should be.
Well, ne of the two most famous things that Walter Cronkite is known for
crying when JFK got shot.
Wait, that doesn't sound like a robot.
That sounds like a human.
And saying that Vietnam war wasn't working.
That was what turned the tide for Vietnam Wait, that's an opinion.
That's a very strong opinion about the most important issue that he was covering.
Wait a minute, it's a sleight of hand.
No, Walter Cronkite isn't at all what they said he was.
None of those old school journalists were what they said.
Edward R Murrow had nothing but he had tons of opinion and he shared his opinion
in a passionate way because he was trying to look out for the average American.
They turned the idea of journalism into something robotic.
No, we were not moved by the massacres were not moved by the wars,
were not moved by all this death destruction, etcetera were not moved by
the fact that they give trillions of dollars to the bankers [INAUDIBLE].
So it's equivalency always on both sides, everything is equal, good and
evil, same thing, it's just two sides of a conversation.
>> So by the time the robots showed up, we were all ready used to them.
>> True that.
>> All right, Let's talk about something very human.
Yeah.
Last quick thing.
The robots couldn't even do the math, right?
So they're not even good quality robots.
>> That makes them more human, too.
Yeah.