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AIAAIC-1259

ChatGPT invents Guardian newspaper articles, bylines

ChatGPT invented a series of articles and bylines by reporters at The Guardian that the newspaper never published, calling into question the system's accuracy and highlighting its tendence to 'hallucinate' facts. The discovery happened after a journalist for the paper was contacted about an article that they could not remember writing but which involved a subject they had a record of covering. After doing some additional research, they could not find any trace of the article’s existence, as ChatGPT had made up the reference. According to The Guardian 's head of editorial innovation Chris Moran, ' Huge amounts have been written about generative AI’s tendency to manufacture facts and events. But this specific wrinkle — the invention of sources — is particularly troubling for trusted news organizations and journalists whose inclusion adds legitimacy and weight to a persuasively written fantasy.' Hallucination (artificial intelligence) In the field of artificial intelligence (AI), a hallucination or artificial hallucination (also called bullshitting, confabulation or delusion) is a response generated by AI that contains false or misleading information presented as fact . Source: Wikipedia 🔗 System 🤖 ChatGPT Operator: The Guardian Developer: Open AI Country: UK; USA Sector: Media/entertainment/sports/arts Purpose: Gen erate text Technology: Chatbot; Generative AI; Machine learning Issue: Accuracy/reliability; Mis/disinformation

Date it happened
2023-03-01
Organisation involved
The Guardian
Product, system or model
ChatGPT
Where this came from
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This incident was imported from AIAAIC and is used under CC BY-SA 4.0. Our additions to it — the structured fields, the translation, the checks against other reports — are published under the same licence.

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