AI fails in its first battle to replace human editors, Wikipedia no longer regards CNET media as a reliable source

News on March 2nd, generating news articles within seconds is certainly a very attractive deployment plan for the media industry, but after the technology media CNET took the lead in implementing it, it did not Winning applause but damaging its reputation.

Wikipedia has a page called "Reliable Sources / Perennial Sources" which lists trusted and reliable news sources.

Starting in 2022, CNET began experimenting with using artificial intelligence to generate some articles. However, these articles contained a large number of grammatical errors and obvious plagiarism, which had a serious impact on the company's reputation. After facing negative reviews and outside pressure, CNET decided to immediately terminate the artificial intelligence project and actively corrected the errors in these articles.

According to a survey and poll of Wikipedia editors, they believe content published on CNET between November 2022 and January 2023 should be considered "generally unreliable."

While CNET’s human editors have performed well during this period, Wikipedia editors believe the quality of the AI’s work could impact the publication’s overall credibility.

The Wikipedia notice attached to this site reads as follows:

CNET will begin experimental use of an artificial intelligence tool in November 2022 , designed to generate articles quickly, but these articles can suffer from factual inaccuracies and confusing affiliate links. This move is aimed at enhancing SEO rankings.

This artificial intelligence tool has authored more than 70 finance-related articles and published them under the byline "CNET Money Staff." Following continued pressure from Red Ventures, more than half of the articles have been corrected.

CNET has since announced a pause in its use of its artificial intelligence tools, but concerns over its advertiser-driven editorial content remain unresolved.

Now, Wikipedia's Source Guide offers a striking table summarizing the site's view of CNET:

CNET was reliable until it was acquired by Red Ventures , was found to be unreliable during its use of artificial intelligence, and CNET's "editorial standards have gone from bad to worse" since 2020.

CNET is a media company in San Francisco, USA, that focuses on reporting technology news. It was founded in 1993 by Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie. In the early years, it ran TV programs and originally planned to establish a cable TV channel. Later, the Internet became popular and the company mainly operated online and was listed on Nasdaq.

In 2008, CBS announced its acquisition of CNET Corporation for $1.8 billion. On September 14, 2020, CBS sold it to digital marketing company Red Ventures for $500 million, and the transaction was completed on October 30 of that year.

Beginning in 2021, CNET began deleting its old stories en masse and using the Internet Archive to archive them, a move that was seen as an attempt to boost the site's rankings.

In 2022, it was revealed that artificial intelligence was used to write articles, and the quality of related articles varied. At the same time, layoffs and promotion freezes began. After the controversy surrounding the incident, it was finally decided to end the use of artificial intelligence in January 2023.

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