Cameron Slater’s BFD website sends out a daily roundup of political news and comment called Ten @ Ten. It includes some excellent material from a diverse range of sources, local and international.
Sometimes it draws attention to things that I’ve written. I take it as a compliment that Cameron uses my stuff and I’m grateful to him for taking it to a wider audience.
However, over the past couple of days a strange thing has happened. Ten @ Ten has linked to two of my blog posts, but on both occasions inserted a wordy preamble that purported to summarise what I was saying.
The first time this happened, which was yesterday, Ten @ Ten attributed to me a whole lot of things I hadn’t said, some of which I don’t agree with.
When I challenged Cameron, he explained that he was using something called Smart Brevity to produce summaries of the content he was linking to. He said he was experimenting with AI.
I have no idea what Smart Brevity is, but can state with total confidence on the basis of what I’ve seen this week that it’s an utter crock.
Despite me expressing my reservations to Cameron yesterday, Ten @ Ten today provided another “summary”, presumably generated by AI, of something I had written. It was a total fabrication, as anyone who clicked on the link to my blog would have realised.
Worse, it seriously misrepresented what I think and aligned me with people whose opinions I heartily disagree with on issues such as media regulation and increased public funding for broadcasting.
Cameron has apologised and explained that he was distracted, which I accept. I don’t believe for a moment that there was any intention to mislead or deceive. However I feel it necessary to set the record straight here for the benefit of anyone scratching their head over Ten @ Ten’s bizarrely inaccurate “summaries” of my views and wondering whether I’ve taken leave of my senses.
I suspect Cameron is one of those people who’s fascinated by digital technology and likes exploring its potential. I, on the other hand, am deeply suspicious of it – a suspicion reinforced by what’s happened over the past two days. Cameron is free to play around with AI to his heart’s content, just as long as I’m not part of his experiment.
Hi Karl, it's basically an AI hallucination. Those kind of AI models work on the prevalence of two words being close to each other. Where they lack data, he essentially start making it up.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to beat a piece of paper and a pencil.
ReplyDeleteI read today that AI is slanted to the left, heavily it would seem, and is designed to alter or eliminate matter that doesn't align with it's programmer's views.
"My friend asked me why I whspered in my own home. I told her I was worried that Mark Zuckerberg was listening to me. She laughed, I laughed, Alexa laughed, Siri laughed".....
The future is already here.
The fridge laughed, the oven laughed, the heat pump laughed...
DeleteIndeed, 'Skynet' is almost here! AI is a powerful tool in its infancy - let's hope it never becomes self aware.
ReplyDeleteClimate Change hysteria
ReplyDeleteRacial hysteria
Trump hysteria
Gender and Trans hysteria
Covid hysteria
Artificial Intelligence hysteria
All of our pandemics rolled into one
Reminds me of Billy Joel’s song “We Didn’t Start The Fire”
Having taken out a subscription to the BFD I rapidly formed the opinion that it was a complete waste of money. I also wonder if having your articles re-published by BFD does increase your readership to any great extent. However, this indiscriminate use of AI has shown the perils of its use.
ReplyDeleteYes Karl, I get the ten@ten email every day; I can see how the AI generated summary went seriously wrong.
ReplyDeletePerhaps BFD should revert to what they were doing (providing an excerpt wouldn't take much effort. Copy and paste an intro and conclusion?) and bin the AI experiment.
BTW, I do value the ten at ten links and am happy to contribute financially to BFD.
ReplyDeleteI read that Klaus Schwab wants to rewrite the Bible, using AI. (Perhaps with a Maori world view seeing that NZ signed up, under Ardern, to a formal agreement with the WEF as a global AI experiment? - google WEF NZ AI). The new AI 'Bible' will be at the core of a new global religion - replacing climate change perhaps?. Given Klaus's advancing years, he will no doubt be in need of a day of rest on the seventh day. A truly wonderful human being.
ReplyDelete