According to CNN, Microsoft’s decision to rely on automation and artificial intelligence over human editors to curate its homepage has led to the amplification of false and bizarre stories.
The site, which comes pre-loaded as the default start page on devices running Microsoft software, employed more than 800 editors in 2018 to help select and curate news stories shown to millions of readers around the world.
In recent years, Microsoft has laid off editors, some of whom were told AI was replacing them.
CNN muttered that while Microsoft’s president has publicly lectured on the responsible use of AI, the apparent role of AI in Microsoft’s recent amplification of bogus stories raises questions about the company’s public adoption of the nascent technology and for the journalism industry.
CNN notes that an AI-generated poll urging readers to guess the cause of a swimmer’s death “was not the first public blunder caused by Microsoft’s embrace of AI.”.
In September, Microsoft republished a story about Brandon Hunter, a former NBA player who died unexpectedly at 42, under the headline, “Brandon Hunter useless at 42.” While this was accurate, it was the sort of headline we doubt that even we would have come up with.
In October, Microsoft republished an article that claimed that San Francisco supervisor Dean Preston had resigned from his position after criticism from Elon Musk. The story was entirely false.
Some of the articles featured by Microsoft were initially published by obscure websites that might have gone unnoticed amid the deluge of online misinformation.
MSN has also published other junk content, including bogus stories about fishermen catching mermaids and bigfoot sightings. We keep getting one about Noah’s ark being found and Atlantis being real.
The pattern seems to be that Vole is releasing AI content, then waits until it's called out publicly to delete it and move on to the subsequent tire fire. It is much cheaper than hiring humans.
A company spokesperson assured CNN that Microsoft was "committed to addressing the recent issue of low-quality articles."