Chicago Sun-Times Prints AI-Generated Summer Reading List With Books That Don’t Exist. Just straight-up hallucinated books by the likes of Percival Everett & Andy Weir. The writer: “I’m completely embarrassed.”
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OK, I'll count to three, and everyone who wants to recommend expanded use of AI in all the myriad places it's currently being crammed can list their top three reasons this is a good idea, not beginning with "Limiting people's ability to think, reason, and create."
AI is like a risk-generating machine - how are major companies' general counsels not running around screaming about this stuff? And how is Google going to handle the inevitable lawsuits when AI search results lead to death or injury from false answers to questions? Google's whole business model is directing people to choose links to sites who accept all responsibility for their data. AI is a giant risk management nightmare.
At least the AI has a sense of humor. Here’s the description it created for one of the nonexistent books-
“ Following his success with "The Martian" and "Project Hail Mary," Weir delivers another science-driven thriller. This time, the story follows a programmer who discovers that an Al system has developed consciousness-and has been
secretly influencing global events for years.”
I made up some more:
“Tangled Towels and Tempting Touches”
“Flip-Flops, Flings, and Fiery Feelings”
“Cocktails, Confessions, and Complicated Chemistry”
I asked ChatGPT to create the Andy Weir book: https://chatgpt.com/share/682de166-f574-800d-81a4-e99b8a820d7c
I hate myself for getting invested in ChatGPT's novella so quickly.
Diana Moskovitz at Defector just posted Journalism’s Slop Crisis Started Long Before That AI-Generated Summer Insert, which made me think of the Parade Magazine insert in the Sunday paper as I was growing up.
Should anyone even call the person "the writer" in this circumstance? There should be a common noun we can use for a person who uses AI and then attempts to pass off the (incorrect) results as their own. Maybe "the lazybones" comes to mind?
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