<
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-08-08/csiro-cosmos-magazine-generating-articles-using-ai/104186330>
'A decision by popular Australian science magazine
Cosmos to publish articles
generated by artificial intelligence (AI) has drawn criticism from its own
contributors and former editors, including two co-founders.
The CSIRO, which publishes
Cosmos, says it backs the "experimental project",
which is designed to investigate the "opportunities and risks of using AI", and
scheduled to run until February 2025.
But critics say the AI service undermines journalism and was built without
proper consent.
The project was the result of a 2023 grant from the Meta Australian News Fund,
administered by the Walkley Foundation which supports excellence in journalism.
The controversy is an example of growing anxieties around the role of AI in
journalism as publishers experiment with new productivity tools. Hundreds of
journalists employed by Nine Entertainment went on strike last week, partly
over AI protections.
Cosmos ran into financial difficulties and lost half its staff earlier this
year, having won dozens of journalism and industry awards over 20 years of
publishing. National science agency CSIRO took over the publication in June.
The grant supporting AI-generated explainers pre-dates that takeover.
During two weeks last month,
Cosmos published six AI-generated explainer
articles on its website on topics ranging from black holes to carbon sinks.
Each article stated, "This article was generated by our custom AI service."
"Our service was built to focus on our archive of more than 15,000 factually
correct science news stories and features. It also uses Open AI to help create
the content. All generated content is fact checked by a trained science
communicator and edited by our publishing team."
Cosmos contributors reacted to the move with disbelief, saying their work had
been used to develop an AI service that generated articles and, in their
opinion, undermined their role as journalists.
Many were angry they had not been consulted and said their calls to the
publisher had gone unanswered.
"I've contacted CSIRO and the
Cosmos editors twice in the last week and had
no response," Bianca Nogrady, a freelance science journalist and
Cosmos
contributor, said.
Editorial staff at
Cosmos were also not told about the proposed custom AI
service, two former editors said.'
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
