Fuck AI

I saw this go down more or less live. I saw the article, but I didn't bother to fact check it. I came back later and saw the comments, including the Scott guy coming in and saying he never said half that shit and it was implied at least the second half of the article was hallucinated by AI, and then the deafening panicked radio silence from staff (who are usually quick to banter with commenters in the forum).

When I got home from work to tell my wife about it (she's an artist, so she hates AI more than most), the article had been taken down.

Ars' de facto head man Aurich (not the guy who founded the site, but the site's mouthpiece) took responsibility for deleting the article, and promised an investigation Tuesday (as Monday is apparently an American holiday and they are enjoying a 3 day weekend). So I would say watch Ars Tuesday to see what, if anything, they say about it then. He said this in response to a forum post in their help forum calling them out for using AI to write their posts. And he shut that conversation down, too (but did not delete the thread).

I like Ars, though. I used to have an account, and once exchanged many unkind messages with their staff. I always liked their articles, though, and I generally trust them to do the right thing. I assume what happened here was some kind of deadline, one writer asked the other for help and they used a chatbot to write part of it, didn't check, and called it a day. It was sloppy work and they absolutely deserve to be called out and dragged through the mud, but they should also be given a chance to make it right. Depending on how they handle this, I will continue to read them (and I hope they handle it right).