CNET discovers inaccuracies in over half of AI-generated articles

The technology news outlet faced criticism recently following reports of its use of AI to compose articles. Recently, company leaders announced that the implementation of the AI tool would be temporarily suspended.

CNET has made corrections to a significant portion of the articles it published using AI tool. An internal review by the outlet revealed errors in many of the stories that led to the corrections. The editor-in-chief of CNET, Connie Guglielmo, defended the use of the AI writing tool but acknowledged the errors in the articles. The articles with corrections included titles such as “What Is Compound Interest?,” “How Much Should You Keep in a CD?,” and “Does a Home Equity Loan Affect Private Mortgage Insurance?” Some articles had corrections that read “We’ve replaced phrases that were not entirely original,” indicating that some of the language may have been plagiarized.

The news of CNET's use of AI to write articles without formal announcement came to light earlier this month by Futurism, and following the discovery of errors in an article, a disclaimer was added to all AI-written stories, stating that they were under review for accuracy, and any errors would be corrected.

On Friday, during a meeting with staff, Red Ventures and CNET leadership announced that the company would be temporarily halting the use of AI-generated content across all of its websites, following weeks of discussions regarding CNET's policies on AI tool disclosures. However, it seems that this decision will not prevent CNET from continuing to use AI tools.

“Expect CNET to continue exploring and testing how AI can be used to help our teams as they go about their work testing, researching and crafting the unbiased advice and fact-based reporting we’re known for,” Guglielmo wrote in her memo today. “The process may not always be easy or pretty, but we’re going to continue embracing it – and any new tech that we believe makes life better.”