ok so apparently: 1) Chicago Sun-Times did not hire this guy, they bought a mass-produced supplement from a company "strategic parteners" with openai support local news, boycott openai - ThreadSky

older.bsky.social • 14 days ago

ok so apparently:
1) Chicago Sun-Times did not hire this guy, they bought a mass-produced supplement from a company "strategic parteners" with openai

support local news, boycott openai

Reposted from Doctora Malka Older

"'"I do use AI for background at times but always check out the material first. This time, I did not and I can't believe I missed it because it's so obvious. No excuses,'" Buscaglia said."
1)THIS IS NOT BACKGROUND! THIS IS MAKING UP ENTIRE BOOKS! WHICH ARE THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE ARTICLE!

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older.bsky.social•14 days ago

2) these supplements are sold with ads months in advance and the producers believe the content is unimportant and that nobody cares about it

support independent, ad-free media (👋🏼). notice what you're reading and tell people about it.

older.bsky.social•14 days ago

3) they really think book recommendations are meaningless filler, because they don't care about books

tell people about the books you love! tell everyone you care about books!

older.bsky.social•14 days ago

4) if they didn't want to pay someone, all they had to do was use publisher descriptions for upcoming books. they're already written! by people who want to sell the books!

it's not about the service or the content. it's just a scam, perpetrated by people with money to make more money.
boycott llms

azteclady.bsky.social•14 days ago

Several librarians have pointed out that libraries put out reading lists constantly, for every occasion and theme, from Black History to travel to any publishing niche; all anyone writing or publishing a list of "hot summer reads" needed to do was ask the nearest public librarian.

stephmoonco.bsky.social•13 days ago

my libraries book lists are 😍

wendyzski.bsky.social•14 days ago

My husband is a librarian and he has been quietly but firmly absolutely losing his shit since the story broke this morning.

older.bsky.social•14 days ago

same tbh except maybe less quietly

jkasonetc.bsky.social•13 days ago

The fact that so many periodicals see no problem with giving space to ad / ad-adjacent pieces which are nigh-indistinguishable from real articles has long been some face-eating leopard territory to me. They’ve been poisoning their own credibility for a while as a result.

timbroderick.bsky.social•14 days ago

FWIW

wasdmatter.bsky.social•13 days ago

This falls short for me.

“In the future we will label external partners” was the worst. External partners means low internal effort, potential AI slop.

If they enforce standards, this isn’t needed.

The math for “humanity is our value” and “nobody here wrote it” says, “we are selling slop.”

stevenbfla.bsky.social•13 days ago

These types of supplements have been used for decades. AI slop is a separate issue than the supplements themselves.

older.bsky.social•13 days ago

agree there are some separate issues in addressing them, but also think they're both symptoms indicative of a deeper common problem

stevenbfla.bsky.social•13 days ago

People not valuing the work of journalists as much as fluff?

I used to work at King putting together comics/games/advice pages for daily papers and they are massive drivers of subscriptions. A comic change can cost more subscriptions than layoffs.

older.bsky.social•13 days ago

that's one way to frame it, although I wouldn't call comics "fluff", at least not in the same way that advertorials are. was thinking more along the lines of funding models and corporate consolidation - and yeah, there are absolutely some things it makes sense to do centrally/share

timbroderick.bsky.social•13 days ago

The biggest problem is lack of support for local news after advertising and classifieds were take over by online giants.
There are always good reasons to cancel a subscription, but in this case the publication was blindsided by a vendor (Hearst and King Features!)

stevenbfla.bsky.social•13 days ago

Definitely, ads always subsidized subscriptions. Folks simply won't pay for news. But they will pay for fluff.
I can't comment on King's internals, I signed a non-disparagement clause when I got laid off from another team. But I can say there was a change of priorities among execs & matching layoffs

wasdmatter.bsky.social•13 days ago

While I agree there are other issues, we are in the “circling the drain” end stage of cutting corners.

AI slop requires admitting that most cut corners will now become slop or an expensive fight to edit out slop.

It’s worrying that their most clear statement is “we will label the potential slop.”

wasdmatter.bsky.social•13 days ago

This changes where contracting out makes sense and what the costs of due diligence are for any setup of this type.

If their plan is to label the partner stuff, it reads to me as a tacit acknowledgement they don’t want to be accountable for its accuracy or quality.

hdgregg.bsky.social•12 days ago

Chicago Sun-Times had editorial responsibility. Huge black eye for the paper.

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