Controversy… What controversy? It sounds more like blatant journalistic malpractice
A few years ago, blatant journalistic malpractice was a controversy.
That’s why he was fired
The article says “controversy” as of this is some cancel culture crap.
When I suggested he be fired on another thread I received several responses saying “he made a mistake” and “he was sick”, and many downvotes in return.
The comments here around this were so… Off. I guess nothing was certain, but we were supposed to believe that the author was too sick to write an article, but also writing an article and using an AI “tool” at the same time.
Hindsight is 20/20, but popular defenses at the time were
He wrote the article himself, he just got mixed up when experimenting with using an AI tool to help him extract quotes from a blog entry. (He is the head AI writer, so learning about these tools is his job.) It was nonetheless his failure to check the quotes he was copying from his note to make sure that he got them right… but an important bit of context is that he had COVID while doing all this.
I was the one who wrote that comment, and it was not an attempt to excuse all of his actions but a response to the following comment:
Someone deserves to be fired. Just imagine you’re paying someone to do a job and they just 100% completely outsource it to a machine in 5 seconds and then goes home.
Here is the full comment that I wrote, including the part you snipped off at the end:
He wrote the article himself, he just got mixed up when experimenting with using an AI tool to help him extract quotes from a blog entry. (He is the head AI writer, so learning about these tools is his job.) It was nonetheless his failure to check the quotes he was copying from his note to make sure that he got them right… but an important bit of context is that he had COVID while doing all this. Now, arguably he should have taken sick time off instead of trying to work through it (as he admits), but this would have cost him vacation time, and the fact that he even was forced into making this choice is a systemic problem that is not being sufficiently acknowledged.
You know that the writer himself is quoted in the OP article, right?
Yes…? I saw his comments weeks ago, and smelled something off about them. And apparently Ars agreed, and determined they were lacking.
And now, “Edwards said he was unable to comment at this time.”
Amazing. Just great.
Imagine being confronted for lying and just going “hey it was an accident okay I didn’t MEAN to decieve people, I just used the machine known for deceiving people and willingly put my name on its deceptions and it deceived people!” and having people defend you.
Actually, he completely admitted to and took full responsibility for his mistake; at no point did he offer an excuse, only an explanation.
To the extent I was defending him, it was because people insisted on painting him in the worst possible light, and on misinterpreting his explanation as an excuse, not because I think that everything that he did was okay.
You do have a point, after reading the article. That’s a bit embarrassing for me, honestly. Ragebait got me again, it seems…
I did not downvote you—my instance does not allow or show downvotes, which is really nice!—but he was sick, and he did make a mistake, and him being fired does not make either of those things false.
Also, a ton of people were piling on him in that thread, so you had plenty of company in calling him to be fired.
but he was sick, and he did make a mistake, and him being fired does not make either of those things false.
No, but I believe they were, nonetheless. Regardless, those things also do not excuse his actions, which is why I said he should be, and ultimately was, fired. And I think that’s a positive thing.
Also, a ton of people were piling on him in that thread, so you had plenty of company in calling him to be fired.
The point is, plenty of people were downvoting me and defending him (such as yourself), which is what made it “controversial”. I was explaining this to the person who was confused as to why it was controversial.
I agree that these things do not excuse his actions, but there was a tendency in that thread to paint him in the worst possible light, which I felt was uncalled for.
I am said to have seen him be fired from Ars because I think there were mitigating circumstances—it is troubling that he felt the need to work while sick!—but on the other hand, given how badly he violated the trust placed in him, it is hard to see how Ars could have made any other choice.
Moreso than violating the trust placed in him is violating the trust readers put into the Ars publication.
I agree, that is a better way of putting it.
“malpractice” would have been not puling the story/issuing a retraction.
It seems like he had humility, but he put his name on an article that had false content that he didn’t verify. That’s not a mistake so much as it is neglect of due diligence. Simply checking if the important citations in his article were true would have saved him, but he didn’t. I can only imagine how many journalists do this without getting caught.
Oh my bad I thought we were talking about the entire Ars team, not the individual author.
I’m not taking all the credit but I do hope those people who didn’t believe me in the past could rightfully take this comment, print it, pull down their pants and shove it up their ass.
It’s time to hold journalism with a higher standard and this idea that “well they do alright” and “it was only once” is bullshit sliding into madness.
Just the facts, folks.
Main character moment.
and “it was only once” is bullshit
They checked and then fired the author. I don’t see how this is “it was only once” implying nothing changed and it will happen again. Isn’t firing the author “holding journalism to a higher standard” already, which you ask for?
Maybe they should do more than just fire a person who was caught using AI. Maybe they should establish a process of independent fact checking before publication, regardless of whether AI was known or intended to be used to produce the article. It is a problem that AI was used in a way that introduced factual errors. It’s fair that the person responsible for this was fired. But all processes need quality control. Why hasn’t the person who failed to wrap quality control processes around the author fired?
in what world would independent fact checking down to the level of individual quotes be feasible for an online magazine? you can’t be serious.
That used to be the standard…
I highly doubt that. how would that even work? a third-party to the publisher would have to check every statement before the issue goes to print. I can’t imagine this happening for anything that is not research papers or official reports.
but I happy to learn something new.
This can and should be done internally. Why would it need to be a third party? Any publisher that cares about their reputation anyway. Fact-checkers are a real thing. They routinely follow up on interviews to make sure authors aren’t bullshitting.
of course, but the OP said independent
Key is, used to be. Ars Technica is one of the best such magazines out there, but even their margins have to be razor thin. To stay at the top of Google search results you have to update super frequently. (Source: this Metafilter post: https://www.metafilter.com/212411/Ars-Technica-Pulls-AI-Article-With-AI-Fabricated-Quotes#8819559)
That’s part of the cost of AI that the AI companies leave to their customers. There is a tradeoff and we know from a long history of for-profit corporate behaviour that they will generally prefer lower short term cost, despite consequent risk and harm. But if the companies that sell AI services don’t take care to ensure the outputs are true and the companies that use AI don’t take care then that leaves the ultimate customer/consumer to fact check everything. That or simply be oblivious or stop trusting anything. The problem is made worse by the fact that most companies won’t disclose their use of AI, because of the adverse impact on their reputation, unless they are compelled to do so. So far, I don’t see any legislation to compel disclosure.
Whoa. There are actually consequences? ArsTechnica is actually sorry??
only if it goes viral
Journalistic integrity? On my internet? Well I never.
“futurism has confirmed”. Later on the article: “reached out to three parties, no replies and no comment”.
Huh? So how did they confirm?
Obviously the use of a LLM was a terrible decision, but I think in this context we can also blame some country’s lack of sick pay.
“I ain’t never said no such thing” - Albert Einstein
Seems fair. Was a pretty big fuck up. Might deter others from making similar fuck ups.
AI - damned if you do and damned if you don’t. And it’s not just journalism affected.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
What was the damned if you don’t in this scenario? Seems more like damned if do, best if you don’t in this situation.
Best if you don’t if quality is more important than financial viability, but no one can compete financially with the flood of AI/LLM being given away for free or, at most, far below actual cost. It’s not good for anyone but the billionaires, but have you noticed how much wealth they have accumulated in the past few years? It’s very, very good for them.
I get where you’re coming from, but I think it’s important that ars has held this person accountable. They have a journalistic standard they are sticking to, which is that there should be no AI use, and there are repercussions for people who don’t abide. There’s not an extremely large cohort that is willing to spend more to avoid AI, but I am certainly part of it, and seeing ars hold this person accountable helps me know that I can trust and patronize them ethically. There are businesses out there unwilling to acquiesce to an AI first narrative, and I’m just worried that elements of doomerism are going to make people unwilling to believe those companies when they have every reason to believe them.
I don’t disagree with you. I wish there were more companies refusing to use AI, at least without the necessary quality controls. And customers enough to support them. But did you see Visualising AI spending: How does it compare with history’s mega projects?? I don’t think Ars can compete with that kind of funding, spent ruthlessly to eliminate competition. People need to wake up and realize they are the target of the predatory pricing of AI services, not just the companies: ordinary people doing good work can’t compete with AI given away for free. Manufacturing didn’t survive the competition of lower cost products from China. I don’t think Ars and companies like them can survive the competition of AI being given away, practically for free. It’s not even that I think AI has no value - it clearly does have enormous value and I expect it will get better. But current AI needs more oversight and control, and those using it should be required to pay the real cost so that those who choose not to use it can compete fairly. Markets that are too free can’t, until it is too late, constrain investment on this scale. We need not just a few companies resisting on principle but some regulation of AI companies to preserve some fairness of the markets, so that companies who use less AI and ordinary people can compete and survive on a level playing field. There are laws against unfair practices for good reason. We all need them to be enforced now.
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.
It is useful in some specific fields like protein folding:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03819-2
The problem is people think it can replace people which is wrong, it is a tool and should be used as such not as a replacement.
Those aren’t LLMs.
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
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.
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.
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.
As they should
I would fire them and hope that they are blacklisted from ever working in journalism ever again
I’ve interacted with Benj Edwards on social media for some time. He’s done lots of good work! He’s on (or maybe used to be on) Mastodon and Bluesky. He runs Vintage Computing and Gaming, and has written good articles for several prominent places. I’ve said as much in multiple forums, I feel like I’ve maybe been going on a crusade.
I haven’t seen many others defending him. I’m really torn up over this. They had a weak moment. They were sick (I mean, literally.). A few other people, notably Cory Doctorow and Paul Ford, have written LLM-defending places. And the AI hype has been deafening.
It’s amazing though, that so soon after he used AI, that it immediately hallucinated something job-ending. I knew it was really bad, but I didn’t know it was THAT bad. You get the sense, with so many people talking positively about it, that the hallucinations must be something that happens, what, maybe 5% of the time?
To me, it seems like the kind of mistake that he should be able to apologize for, promise not to do it again, and move on. But we’ve all had our good will taken advantage of for so long by malicious actors, like how Gamergate was used as a wedge to push loathsome politics onto a legion of young males. It feels like we can’t give anyone the benefit of the doubt any more.
I don’t know. I know I’m influenced by all the good work he’s done. I feel like that shouldn’t all be thrown away.
5% of the time? LLMs, from their own perspective, are only capable of hallucinating. There’s no difference in what they’re doing between cases we call “hallucinating” and “correct.” It’s the same process.
why the fuck wouldn’t a journalist double check the things that the AI is returning? in what universe is this even considered journalism? it’s so crazy to me that I can’t imagine how it even happened. it’s too stupid for my imagination
He was sick and had a weak moment. He didn’t realize that it would just make the quote up.
Cory Doctorow … have written LLM-defending places.
citation requested because everything I’ve seen them write is opposed
Took a bit but found it, it’s not ChatGPT but a small self-hosted AI with an open source model: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/19/now-we-are-six/
TYVM!
Trying to track it down…
TY. Recently finished his book, Enshittification, it’s spot on. good read.
Why are we blaming AI here instead of the journalist?
I mean they fired the guy, and the guy took full responsibility for the errors. If that’s not blaming the journalist, I don’t know what is.
Tbf, I didn’t read the article. But the title mentions “controversy.” Also are people so lazy they can’t make up their own fake quotes? Was AI really needed here?
Tbf, I didn’t read the article. But the title…
Say no more. Please
Are people so lazy they can’t even bother to read the headline? Maybe an AI would’ve been useful here to generate its own defense.
Being too lazy to read is one thing, not being too lazy to then comment is a whole other kind of existence.
JFC RTFM
Maybe they heared @latenightlinux@mastodon.social
