The New York Times drops freelance journalist Alex Preston who used AI to write book review

by mlg1981

12 Comments

  1. MajorTaste7762 on

    Using AI to write a book review is like using a calculator to explain math technically efficient, but it kind of misses the point.

  2. In (mild) defense of this guy, being a journalist right now is absolutely brutal. It’s piecemeal gig work for most folks at this point and pay has continued to plummet because many outlets are using AI in their editorial processes which means the productivity standard has become totally unrealistic. 

    Do I wish this guy wrote the piece himself? Yes. Do I also realize that AI is changing productivity and pay expectations in many industries leading to desperation on the part of workers? Also yes.

  3. CemeteryHounds on

    This is a pretty funny example of why AI is not a good replacement for writers. It can only regurgitate what’s already out there, and in this case the amount of original writing it had to steal from was very, very small.

  4. ClassroomMother8062 on

    Good, that’s thievery. Get a different job if you don’t actually want to do the work they hired you to.

  5. No_Beach_220 on

    Everything sounds like AI nowadays. Waaay too many negative contrast constructions in writing these days.

  6. chartreusey_geusey on

    **AS THEY FUCKING SHOULD**

    https://preview.redd.it/fjhg2gjzvpsg1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e24cf13e140997adcc07a0a91b6933f05a11fb44

    I didn’t ask for the opinions of a shitty chatbot that is actually just scraping the internet and pasting together fully plagiarized sentences with some light rewording based on probabilities that collection of letters in that order (because digital logic has absolutely no way of quantifying actual words let alone sentences and their meaning beyond a pattern of letters) will satisfy the prompt request. I asked for a real human beings opinions and that needs to be written entirely by that person flaws and all— that is part of the message and the human experience. 

  7. Jealous-Shallot-3071 on

    Can you “drop” a freelance writer? You can choose not to offer them any work going forward, but you can’t drop someone you don’t employ.

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