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Incident 457: Article-Writing AI by CNET Allegedly Committed Plagiarism

Description: CNET's use of generative AI to write articles allegedly ran into plagiarism issues, reproducing verbatim phrases from other published sources or making minor changes to existing texts such as altering capitalization, swapping out words for synonyms, and changing minor syntax.

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Entities

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Alleged: unknown developed an AI system deployed by CNET, which harmed plagiarized entities and CNET readers.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
457
Report Count
6
Incident Date
2022-11-11
Editors
Khoa Lam, Daniel Atherton
Applied Taxonomies
CSETv1, MIT

CSETv1 Taxonomy Classifications

Taxonomy Details

Incident Number

The number of the incident in the AI Incident Database.
 

457

Special Interest Intangible Harm

An assessment of whether a special interest intangible harm occurred. This assessment does not consider the context of the intangible harm, if an AI was involved, or if there is characterizable class or subgroup of harmed entities. It is also not assessing if an intangible harm occurred. It is only asking if a special interest intangible harm occurred.
 

no

Date of Incident Year

The year in which the incident occurred. If there are multiple harms or occurrences of the incident, list the earliest. If a precise date is unavailable, but the available sources provide a basis for estimating the year, estimate. Otherwise, leave blank. Enter in the format of YYYY
 

2022

Date of Incident Month

The month in which the incident occurred. If there are multiple harms or occurrences of the incident, list the earliest. If a precise date is unavailable, but the available sources provide a basis for estimating the month, estimate. Otherwise, leave blank. Enter in the format of MM
 

11

Date of Incident Day

The day on which the incident occurred. If a precise date is unavailable, leave blank. Enter in the format of DD
 

Estimated Date

“Yes” if the data was estimated. “No” otherwise.
 

Yes

MIT Taxonomy Classifications

Machine-Classified
Taxonomy Details

Risk Subdomain

A further 23 subdomains create an accessible and understandable classification of hazards and harms associated with AI
 

3.1. False or misleading information

Risk Domain

The Domain Taxonomy of AI Risks classifies risks into seven AI risk domains: (1) Discrimination & toxicity, (2) Privacy & security, (3) Misinformation, (4) Malicious actors & misuse, (5) Human-computer interaction, (6) Socioeconomic & environmental harms, and (7) AI system safety, failures & limitations.
 
  1. Misinformation

Entity

Which, if any, entity is presented as the main cause of the risk
 

Human

Timing

The stage in the AI lifecycle at which the risk is presented as occurring
 

Post-deployment

Intent

Whether the risk is presented as occurring as an expected or unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
 

Intentional

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

Incident Occurrence+1
CNET pauses publishing AI-written stories after disclosure controversy
+3
CNET's AI Journalist Appears to Have Committed Extensive Plagiarism
CNET pauses publishing AI-written stories after disclosure controversy

CNET pauses publishing AI-written stories after disclosure controversy

theverge.com

CNET Pauses AI-Written Articles to Let Backlash Die Down

CNET Pauses AI-Written Articles to Let Backlash Die Down

gizmodo.com

CNET's AI Journalist Appears to Have Committed Extensive Plagiarism

CNET's AI Journalist Appears to Have Committed Extensive Plagiarism

futurism.com

News Site Admits AI Journalist Plagiarized and Made Stuff Up, Announces Plans to Continue Publishing Its Work Anyway

News Site Admits AI Journalist Plagiarized and Made Stuff Up, Announces Plans to Continue Publishing Its Work Anyway

futurism.com

CNET's AI Plagiarism Debacle

CNET's AI Plagiarism Debacle

plagiarismtoday.com

CNET Cops to Error Prone AI Writer, Doubles Down on Using It

CNET Cops to Error Prone AI Writer, Doubles Down on Using It

gizmodo.com

CNET pauses publishing AI-written stories after disclosure controversy
theverge.com · 2023

CNET will pause publication of stories generated using artificial intelligence “for now,” the site’s leadership told employees on a staff call Friday.

The call, which lasted under an hour, was held a week after CNET came under fire for its …

CNET Pauses AI-Written Articles to Let Backlash Die Down
gizmodo.com · 2023

CNET told staff it would halt the publication of articles generated via artificial intelligence, in a Friday call, according to a report from The Verge. Or, at least, the company said it would pause the AI-article practice “for now,” as it …

CNET's AI Journalist Appears to Have Committed Extensive Plagiarism
futurism.com · 2023

The site initially addressed widespread backlash to the bot-written articles by assuring readers that a human editor was carefully fact-checking them all prior to publication.

Afterward, though, Futurism found that a substantial number of e…

News Site Admits AI Journalist Plagiarized and Made Stuff Up, Announces Plans to Continue Publishing Its Work Anyway
futurism.com · 2023

This morning, _CNET _editor-in-chief Connie Guglielmo broke the site's lengthy silence on its decision to publish dozens of AI-generated articles about personal finance topics on its site. 

It appears to be the first time that anyone in the…

CNET's AI Plagiarism Debacle
plagiarismtoday.com · 2023

Over the past two weeks, CNET has become the poster child of artificial intelligence (AI) gone wrong.

First, the website was caught publishing articles produced by an AI under the byline “CNET Money Staff” in an article written by Frank Lan…

CNET Cops to Error Prone AI Writer, Doubles Down on Using It
gizmodo.com · 2023

After getting caught using an algorithm to write dozens of articles, the tech publication CNET has apologized (sorta) but wants everybody to know that it definitely has no intention of calling it quits on AI journalism.

Yes, roughly two wee…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.

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