AI-generated news websites, now attracting advertising, have landed in Australia.
Newsguard has so far identified 811 AI-generated news and information sites operating with little to no human oversight.
The US news rating tool is also tracking false narratives produced by artificial intelligence.
Among the hundreds of sites identified as made by AI include some with Australian themes.
The com.au blog nutricity has an article which in the middle states: “As an AI language model, I don’t have specific knowledge of Australian market.”
And Crypto News Australia which says: “It's important to note that this information is based on the state of knowledge up until September 2021 …”
Advertising rates are HERE.
ABC News also identified several sites rewriting, using AI, articles from mainstream websites. These include League Initiative, Surf Initiative and F1 Initiative.
Newsguard calls the sites UAINS (Unreliable AI-Generated News and information websites).
These typically have generic names, such as iBusiness Day, Ireland Top News, and Daily Time Update, which to a consumer appear to be established news sites, says Newsguard.
“This obscures that the sites operate with little to no human oversight and publish articles written largely or entirely by bots — rather than presenting traditionally created and edited journalism, with human oversight,” says Newsguard.
“The sites have churned out dozens and in some cases hundreds of generic articles, about a range of subjects including politics, technology, entertainment, and travel.
The articles have sometimes included false claims, including about political leaders.
“Other false claims relate to celebrity death hoaxes, fabricated events, and articles presenting old events as if they just occurred," says Newsguard.
“In many cases, the revenue model for these websites is programmatic advertising under which the ad-tech industry delivers ads without regard to the nature or quality of the website.
“As a result, top brands are unintentionally supporting these sites. Unless brands take steps to exclude untrustworthy sites, their ads will continue to appear on these types of sites, creating an economic incentive for their creation at scale.”
Brands are unwittingly feeding programmatic ad dollars to low-quality AI-generated news and information sites operating with little to no human oversight.
These sites are apparently simple to erect. Just tell a freelancer what you want and they will do the work for a small fee.
The Wall Street Journal recently published an article by Jack Brewster who had such a site built by paying $US105 to a freelancer on Fiverr.com.
“Purchasing an AI content farm on Fiverr.com is as easy as ordering on Uber Eats,” wrote Brewer, who is also enterprise editor for NewsGuard.
“I searched ‘AI generated news website’ on the home page and up came dozens of developers offering to build my site.”
The developer said ChatGPT was ordered to rewrite articles which, he argued, meant the result was a new work “fresh, copyright-free content with no plagiarism”.
Ongoing costs: Based on OpenAI’s listed API prices, $3 or less a month to publish 50-100 articles a day, plus $5 a month for a web-hosting company.
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