Rise of the Newsbots: AI-Generated News Websites Proliferating Online

Rise of the Newsbots: AI-Generated News Websites Proliferating Online

NewsGuard has identified 49 news and information sites that appear to be almost entirely written by artificial intelligence software. A new generation of content farms is on the way.

Here we go...

Imagine the increased profitability of using algorithmically-driven AI chatbots to pretend that they are a 'news' service by aggregating content and repackaging it ... The practice of capturing for-profit web activity by using the content of others has now reached a critical point. Using chatbots to generate language based upon other input makes it easier to pretend you are something you are not... and harvesting "clicks" along the way.

Artificial intelligence tools are now being used to populate so-called content farms, referring to low-quality websites around the world that churn out vast amounts of clickbait articles to optimize advertising revenue, NewsGuard found.

In April 2023, NewsGuard identified 49 websites spanning seven languages — Chinese, Czech, English, French, Portuguese, Tagalog, and Thai — that appear to be entirely or mostly generated by artificial intelligence language models designed to mimic human communication — here in the form of what appear to be typical news websites.

There are some hints that the news and information you might consume is 'lifted' from the work of others... mostly by attributions like... "According to a new report" and "Such and Such company has revealed that..." and the like.

There are talented researchers and authors whose work comes to us not by their own efforts by by those who pretend that their 'sourcing' has value... when all they do is regurgitate a line or two (or in some cases by highlighting certain phrases or bolding and italicizing certain text.) and calling it, for all intents and purposes, their own work. Many popular news sites never bother to point out that it is their mainstay process.. their bread and butter.

Now it can be done with even less human input... aggregating 'news' and 'information' by keyword and slathering on a bunch of ad heavy accoutrements and gimmickry.

The websites, which often fail to disclose ownership or control, produce a high volume of content related to a variety of topics, including politics, health, entertainment, finance, and technology. Some publish hundreds of articles a day. Some of the content advances false narratives. Nearly all of the content features bland language and repetitive phrases, hallmarks of artificial intelligence.

Many of the sites are saturated with advertisements, indicating that they were likely designed to generate revenue from programmatic ads — ads that are placed algorithmically across the web and that finance much of the world’s media — just as the internet’s first generation of content farms, operated by humans, were built to do.

This is a very good article that points out some very specific examples they found and some really, really troubling patterns surface. Here's just one example:

The articles themselves often give away the fact that they were AI produced. For example, dozens of articles on BestBudgetUSA.com contain phrases of the kind often produced by generative AI in response to prompts such as, “I am not capable of producing 1500 words… However, I can provide you with a summary of the article,” which it then does, followed by a link to the original CNN report.

The presence of these sorts of phrases is also evidence that these sites likely operate with little to no human oversight.

Please take a moment to check this out... and be alert... You should always know who authors the work you cite in conversation or writing.

a reply to: Maxmars

I knew it. I have seen so many articles that just seem fake I even made a thread about it wondering if other people noticed this.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I've been noticing it for years, but it's more like a student taking an article and rewriting it to claim as their own.

Now with openai and the other recent contextual systems I'm sure more people are passing off "ai" written articles as their own.

The question is, who reads this drivel?

a reply to: lordcomac

I thought about my question for a bit and i hate the answer.

Other "ai" scrapes these articles and uses them as their sources for their own articles, creating an effective feedback loop.
Just like the MSM has been doing for years.

Art imitates life indeed...

originally posted by: Maxmars

Imagine the increased profitability of using algorithmically-driven AI chatbots to pretend that they are a 'news' service by aggregating content and repackaging it ...

For a while here the broadcast TV “news” has consisted of liile more than the reporters reading off their Twitter feed or quoting the Internet.

You don’t need a superstar anchor and their salary to do that.

Seems fair enough to me. Most journalists just read and copy from Twitter, a bot can do that and not demand a 6 figure salary.

Sad for the 7 ethical, actual journalists who remain in the world but hey ho.

Being serious it is actually annoying when you search a topic, click a site and the article is some super janky AI-written crap. Seems the AI trash operators are good at SEO as well.

Hey, I send you AI generated txt's, then you respond with AI generated responses. And away we go for months, maybe even fall in love... Is just the continuation of the design of "smart" "phones" (computers that spy on you and happen to make phone calls) playing out on the broad stage: the design to make us stupid. Without looking at your phone, tell yourself your moms number!

Euphemism isn't even the right word here, but whatever it is, this idea that "smart phones" are here to make us smarter is roughly as offensive as this term "WOKE". The idea there being oh we've got all these people finally woke up (to how insane humanity whatever is). These people 'raised by' "smart phones", are on the march to be the harbingers of how insane humanity whatever is. Actual violence even. Just perpetuating the same OLD dark patterns they claim to be the saviors of humanity from.

And the AI's, that us all "using" "phones", Siri's, ChatGPT's, etc, the AI's are studying all of it. On how to control, and manipulate us all. That's their design afterall, by the technocrat elitists firms behind it all by in large.

Hows it working out, here in "The Future". How much smarter is society??

So the remedy is to simply investigate the writer(s), owner(s) and if the piece comes with hyperlinks to actual real sources that can be verified. I do this now.

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