Charlotte Tobitt, Press Gazette:
Wired and Business Insider have removed news features written by a freelance journalist after concerns they are likely AI-generated works of fiction.
Freedom of expression non-profit Index on Censorship is also in the process of taking down a magazine article by the same author after concerns were raised by Press Gazette. The publisher has concluded that it “appears to have been written by AI”.
Several other UK and US online publications have published questionable articles by the same person, going by the name of Margaux Blanchard, since April.
Tobitt reports at least six publications carried articles with the “Margaux Blanchard” byline. Wired, for its part, published an explanation that, unfortunately, does not make it look very good. For one thing, it is attributed to “Wired Management”, not any specific person. For another, the reason “Blanchard” was busted had nothing to do with the article itself:
Over the next several days, it became clear that the writer was unable to provide enough information to be entered into our payments system. They instead insisted on payment by PayPal or check. Now suspicious, a WIRED editor ran the story through two third-party AI-detection tools, both of which said that the copy was likely to be human-generated. A closer look at the details of the story, though, along with further correspondence from the writer, made it clear to us that the story had been an AI fabrication. After more due diligence from the head of our research desk, we retracted the story and replaced it with an editor’s note.
Wired says it did not fully vet the article before publishing, which seems a little bit obvious. This amount of transparency is admirable, however, in contrast with other publications that have merely replaced articles “by” “Blanchard” with a terse note.
This is obviously a huge mistake on the part of these media organizations. It is embarrassing and silly and all the rest of it, particularly for Wired which has ramped up its political coverage with an aggressive but accurate bent. I also cannot help but feel it is indicative of what is, for lack of better phrasing, our current media climate. Trust in mass media has been declining for years, in part because financial pressures have triggered staffing cutbacks while online news has encouraged faster and voluminous coverage, which means all of this is done with increasing sloppiness thereby feeding declining trust in mass media. I am not making excuses for Wired or Business Insider running an insufficiently checked piece; they should have followed protocols. But a little bit of this problem may be attributable to the corner-cutting that encourages publishing more stories more quickly.
Also, who the hell is behind this “Margaux Blanchard” character anyway?
Tobitt, in a followup:
An internet hoaxer calling themselves Andrew Frelon has claimed responsibility for the fake (likely AI-generated) freelance journalist Margaux Blanchard.
Andrew Frelon is itself a pseudonym and their claims have to be treated with a high degree of scepticism.
“Frelon” is the same person who, earlier this year, claimed to be responsible for the Velvet Sundown A.I. music hoax, only to reveal that statement, itself, was a prank and he had nothing to do with the Velvet Sundown.
Also, we apparently know Frelon’s real name, according to Kevin Maimann, of CBC News:
The Quebec man who pranked journalists and music fans by saying he was behind a wildly successful AI band has revealed his identity as web platform safety and policy issues expert Tim Boucher.
Boucher’s own telling reads to me like the ramblings of someone a little too self-indulgent and self-important. In other words, he could very well be responsible for hijacking the publicity around the Velvet Sundown gag, and attempting to do the same for this “Margaux Blanchard” situation. Do not simply be skeptical; assume this is false until Boucher or “Frelon” provides proof. Press ought to stop giving this doofus the publicity he appears to crave.
