• tangeli@piefed.social
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    8 months ago

    AI - damned if you do and damned if you don’t. And it’s not just journalism affected.

    • mrmaplebar@fedia.io
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      8 months ago

      In this case it was very much NOT “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”–It’s just don’t.

      As a journalist it’s your whole fucking job to do the research and report things accurately and truthfully. There’s no reason at all the “journalist” in question here should have had an AI generated anything for his shitty article.

      The fact that this was a story on AI misuse in the first place only adds insult to injury.

      • ThomasWilliams@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        There’s no reason at all the “journalist” in question here should have had an AI generated anything for his shitty article.<

        Except that there is a requirement in Conde Nast to use AI.

        As a journalist it’s your whole fucking job to do the research and report things accurately and truthfully.<

        That is what the AI is supposed to be for.

        They can’t have it both ways - either they demand AI and accept the consequences, or they give sufficient resources to staff to complete their work without it.

      • tangeli@piefed.social
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        8 months ago

        And yet, if you don’t, you will be undercut by the grossly subsidized AI and out of a job, either individually if your management leans AI or the whole enterprise if they don’t, replaced by the AI slop factories.

        • mrmaplebar@fedia.io
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          8 months ago

          Yeah. But there’s always the risk of being undercut by someone or something cheaper if you’re operating in a workplace with zero standards. After all, you could write a lot of articles if you didn’t give a rat’s ass about the veracity or quality of the information within.

          Good newsrooms are supposed to have standards–that’s what makes them good.

          If this the people at Ars had done their jobs to a high standard, the article in question wouldn’t have been written like that in the first place, let alone edited and published as is. They want to fire the writer in question, and the writer wants to blame being sick, but the fact remains that the publishing of that article reveals a systemic problem with how Ars are operating, and a total lack of editorial standards.

          • tangeli@piefed.social
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            8 months ago

            The elite don’t need the masses to be informed, they need them to be placated and oblivious or confused about what is happening, so they support what is contrary to their interests - idolize and support the elite. Good newsrooms don’t serve the purposes of those that own them. AI producing slop with embedded propaganda serves them. It has only just begun. Watch young people on TikTok, sopping up the numbing propaganda. It is the future - now controlled by US elites. Like programmers who know their code, accountants that know their books, and so many other professionals who pride themselves on the quality of their work, journalists who do their jobs to a high standard are being replaced. It will be very good for a few - those that can afford quality, free from slop and misinformation. But that’s not the audience of Ars.

    • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I have yet to see a field where LLMs are a net positive. At best scammers can dupe people easier and faster than ever but between writing, programming, etc the avg productivity gain is typically negligible at best to achieve work of similar quality with or without LLMs.

          • themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            8 months ago

            Oh your right my mistake. I guess unit testing and debugging are useful. I did use copilot to find a missing slash. Also useful for revising email and paragraphs, of course you have to review it. It also should never be used for scientific research and journalism. Of course it doesn’t justify the investments into LLMs, we should focus on more useful things like alpha fold

            • dandi8@fedia.io
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              8 months ago

              Unit testing with LLMs is just asking an AI to hallucinate requirements.

              Tests are what documents expected behavior and are therefore the worst candidate for code gen.

    • resipsaloquitur@lemmy.worldBanned
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      8 months ago

      Or, you know, double-check that the quotes given to you by the experimental AI “quote extractor” tool are accurate?

      He is (was) their go-to AI reporter. It’s not like they handed the assignment to an intern and said “go nuts.”

      And the article was about AI fabricating an attack on a developer that rejected its PR.

      • ThomasWilliams@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        The whole point of using AI is that its a search tool and that is the verification.

        Otherwise there’s no point in using it.

        And you can guarantee Conde Nast demands journalists use AI all the time.