We cover AI a lot on this blog, rant, or whatever you prefer calling it. A story caught my eye in the Columbia Journalism Review because it showed even careful journalists can be fooled by Artificial Intelligence shortcuts.

So, the story goes… a Dutch freelancer, Menno van den Bos has been in touch with the publication, as well as the Tow Center for Digital Journalism. He said he found what he thought was inaccurate reporting in one of the newsletters they put out. But it wasn’t necessarily their fault, because they continue to point to fake quotes and citations from journalists and academics as a growing problem.

The publication wasn’t trying to discredit what had happened, they chose to shine a light instead about how AI distortions can come from highly respected journalists too. One of which has been suspended from his job as the editor of a leading Dutch newspaper for unchecked and inaccurate use of AI.

This is part of the reason I’m so leery of using this technology. Besides stealing work from humans, it’s been proven time and time again to just skim and search and not be able to fully verify, especially in a timely manner, read: deadline crunch. That means even more fake news or fake academic work is running rampant.

Honestly, it’s not enough to apologize for mess-ups because you’ve counted on artificial intelligence to help you write or research, it’s now out there in the ether and way too late. You can’t claw the work back or put out a correction as if you are writing for a newspaper in 1985. And what’s the use of apologizing? That doesn’t go back in time to fix what’s been done. 

Read that again… journalism and academia are being undone.