Bloomberg News and The Guardian reported on the 2nd that 49 ‘fake news’ companies that mass-produce articles using generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots were caught in droves.
According to the report, ‘Newsguard’, a disinformation detection company, released a report titled ‘The Rise of Newsbots: AI-generated News Websites Spreading on the Internet’ on the same day. Through this, fake news companies have used AI chatbots to disclose the circumstances in which they have been distributing false articles online.
These companies used plausible names such as ‘News Live’ and ‘Daily Business Post’ to claim that they were ordinary media outlets. However, instead of having a separate reporter, AI chatbots such as OpenAI’s ‘ChatGPT’ and Google’s ‘Bard’ were used to write articles. Even so, it did not inform the reader that it was written by AI.
Most of the articles were false. Last month, the parent company said,’Biden died… It openly posted an obituary article titled ‘Acting President Harris’ 9:00 A.M. Speech’ at the top of its website. Another company made a YouTube video of unconfirmed reports of the deaths of thousands of soldiers on the battlefields in Ukraine.
NewsGuard analyzed that these companies have been mass-producing such false articles for the purpose of attracting advertisements. Regardless of the authenticity, it is a strategy to sell ads on its website at a higher price by inducing readers to ‘click’ with stimulating articles. The researchers said, “The content turnover rate is so fast that revenue advertisements are saturated.”
NewsGuard co-CEO Gordon Krovitz said, “The use of AI models widely known for fabricating facts to make them look like news websites is a fraud masquerading as journalism.”
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.