Name this famous web site/company:
- Was founded in 1994. That’s the same year as Yahoo! for perspective.
- Was once bought for $1.8 billion
- By CBS, no less
- And then was sold for $500 million
- Launched the career of Ryan Seacrest
- Once owned TechRepublic, mp3.com, and GameSpot
- Fired the editor of GameSpot because Eidos Interactive was mad he gave Kane & Lynch: Dead Men a “meh” review
We are, of course, talking about CNET.
Now that last bullet point is funny, because back when that happened in 2007, you could be sure that everything you read on the Internet was either written by a human or was obviously machine-generated.
Not so today. There’s an interesting piece on futurism.com about how CNET has been using more and more AI-generated text to populate their site. As you saw in the history above, CNET has been passed around like a cheerleader on prom night, and with each new venture capitalist there’s a new round of cost-cutting. Computers are cheaper than humans.
In this case, the articles are marked with a byline states that a human has reviewed the text. But what if that wasn’t there? Would you not read the article? I’d wager that there are tons of people who’ll google something and read the first article that appears, scanning for the answer to their question without even looking at the byline.
And what if AI-generated articles are made to produce articles that appeal to search engines more than any others? Really, how could they not?
Since the program began, CNET has put out around 73 AI-generated articles. That’s not a whole lot for a site that big, and absent an official announcement of the program, it appears leadership is trying to keep the experiment as lowkey as possible. CNET did not respond to questions about the AI-generated articles.
The article has an interesting comment from Google as well.
Here at LowEndBox, everything is written by human hands. And on the rare occasion it’s not, we make it pretty clear. But then, we don’t have $500 million…or Ryan Seacrest.
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I also enjoy using LEBs! I have an empire of little guys for VPNs, larger guys for apps, and big guys for databases and storage. When I'm not in front a screen I'm into German Shepherd dogs, quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop roleplaying games, and forest hiking.
I enjoy writing technical articles here on LowEndBox to help people get more out of their systems. You can find me on LowEndTalk @raindog308
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Pretty soon we will only have to wake up in the morning and push continue…
As a teacher that has seen cursive writing disappear in schools, I think AI is a destroyer of the human mind.
I don’t miss cursive writing. I write faster printing and it’s completely legible. I can still write in cursive but it looks like I’m in 3rd grade. As long as people can write legibly (and I agree that is important), I don’t see that cursive versus print makes a difference.
But the vast laziness that has spread over education…spot on.
Just finished reading your blog and I have to say, it was an outright hoot. Your writing technique is so engaging, I felt like I was on a wild goose chase with you. The picture you included were also a hoot, and I’m persuadedconvinced that you must have a photographic memory because they were so vivid. Keep it up, it’s a real trip!”
Wow, thanks!