So-called content farms are nothing new: sites mass produce news articles aimed at generating ad revenue through clickbait headlines.
For these sites, text-generating artificial intelligence technology is a real boon. Newsguard, an American organization specializing in the analysis of misleading information
on the Internet, in a new study has so far identified 49 sites that use
artificial intelligence to create texts.
The actual number is undoubtedly much higher, as Newsguard initially limited its research to seven languages: English, Chinese, Czech, English, French, Portuguese, Tagalog and Thai.
The 49 resources found were in the format of regular news sites, but their content was wholly or partially generated by artificial intelligence. These are alarming results.
Multiple and powerful AI tools are becoming increasingly available to the public, and fears that they are creating entire news outlets - something that was once the speculation of media scientists - is now a reality.
Sites vetted by Newsguard have innocuous and unobtrusive titles that indicate a reputable publisher, such as Market News Reports or Biz Breaking News. However, there is often no imprint or other information about the publisher.
Of the 29 operators contacted by the organization, only two confirmed that they use artificial intelligence. 17 did not even respond to the organization's inquiries. However, it was often obvious from the article whether it was written by AI. Sometimes an important part of the text was a message from the chatbot in question that it could not implement the prompt.
British newspaper The Guardian tested several websites itself and found, among other things, an obituary for US President Joe Biden on Celebritiesdeaths.com. The statement that he had passed away peacefully in his sleep and that Vice President Kamala Harris would now take his place was followed by a note that "misleading content is against OpenAI policy".
How to recognize sites with AI content
The Guardian also reports grammatically odd but optimized for
SEO headlines, constant repetition in texts, and oversimplified wording in supposedly scientific texts. However, it's not always easy to recognize AI-generated content.
In addition to missing output, Newsguard points out several features to look out for. Some sites generate hundreds of articles per day, which is hardly possible in a typical newsroom. In addition, many sites are overflowing with
advertising, as the revenue from it is the sole reason for their existence.
This use of artificial intelligence is still in its infancy. As The Guardian notes, future AIs will learn from texts created by other members of their species.