CNN
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False claim that President Joe Biden fell asleep during a moment of silence for Maui wildfire victims. A conspiracy theory that the recent surge in the number of coronavirus infections is being orchestrated by the Democratic Party ahead of the election. Obituary of the late NBA player who described him as “useless.”
These false and bizarre articles are not posted in far-flung corners of the Internet, but are published by Microsoft. The company’s homepage, also known as MSN.com and Microsoft Start, remains one of the most trafficked websites in the world and is where millions of Americans get their news every day.
But Microsoft’s decision to increasingly rely on automation and the use of artificial intelligence rather than human editors to edit its homepage appears to be behind the site’s recent amplification of false and bizarre stories. , a person familiar with how the site works told CNN.
The site is preloaded as the default start page on devices running Microsoft software, including Microsoft’s latest “Edge” browser, the successor to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser, and in 2018 it expanded to include news selection and curation. We have hired more than 800 editors to support us. Tell your story to millions of readers around the world.
But in recent years, Microsoft has been laying off editors, some of whom are said to be replaced by “automation” (what they understand as AI).
Microsoft’s initial investment in OpenAI, creator of the buzzy ChatGPT app, has made the company a promising and potentially dangerous company, even as the tech giant’s president has publicly spoken about the responsible use of the technology. We have placed it at the forefront of the AI revolution.
But the apparent role of AI in Microsoft’s recent amplification of false stories raises questions about the company’s public adoption of the nascent technology and the journalism industry as a whole.
Concerns and tensions over Microsoft’s use of AI in news content boiled over on Tuesday when Britain’s Guardian newspaper accused Microsoft of damaging the paper’s reputation after publishing an article on its site.
To power its high-traffic news portal, Microsoft has signed licensing deals with major news organizations around the world, including the Guardian and CNN, which allow the tech giant to publish articles in exchange for a cut of advertising revenue. can now be republished.
Last week, the Guardian Article published About Lily James, a 21-year-old woman who was found dead with severe head injuries at a school in Sydney, Australia.
What led to James’ murder? overflowing sadness And sparked a national debate about violence against women in Australia.
But when MSN republished the Guardian article, it also included an AI-generated survey asking readers: “What do you think is the reason behind the woman’s death?” He then listed three options: murder, accident, and suicide.
The poll prompted criticism from Microsoft readers, with one person writing, “This has to be the most pathetic and disgusting poll I’ve ever seen.”
In a sharply worded letter to Microsoft obtained by CNN, Guardian Media Group CEO Anna Bateson said the automatically generated polls showed that the company’s AI technology was “very concerning.” The company said it was an “application” and demanded that Microsoft take full responsibility.
“Applications of this nature not only have the potential to cause distress to the families of the individuals who are the subjects of the articles, but also to the Guardian’s hard-won reputation for trustworthy and sensitive journalism, and to the reputations of individual journalists. It is also deeply hurtful.”Who wrote the original story?” Bateson wrote in a letter to Microsoft President Brad Smith on Tuesday.
Bateson said Microsoft’s use of AI-generated polls in conjunction with articles is “exactly the kind of example we’ve been warning you about in relation to news” and that this is “an example of what we’ve previously warned your team about Microsoft’s poll results”. This is the main reason why we asked them not to do so.” Experimental genAI technology is being applied to journalism under license from The Guardian newspaper. ”
A Microsoft spokesperson said the company has disabled all surveys on news articles and is “investigating the source of the inappropriate content.” The poll should not have been published alongside this type of article, and we are taking steps to prevent this type of mistake from happening in the future. ”
But this jarring poll wasn’t the first public failure caused by Microsoft’s adoption of AI.
Featured on MSN in August story A website falsely claimed that President Joe Biden fell asleep during a moment of silence for victims of the devastating wildfires on Maui.
The next month, Microsoft reissue The article is about former NBA player Brandon Hunter, who suddenly passed away at the age of 42, with the headline “Brandon Hunter is useless at 42.”
And in October, Microsoft reissue Article claiming that San Francisco Superintendent Dean Preston resigned from his position following criticism from Elon Musk.
That story was a complete lie.
Some of the articles featured by Microsoft were originally published on anonymous websites and may have gone unnoticed amidst the deluge of misinformation circulating online every day.
However, Microsoft’s decision to republish articles from fringe outlets has brought these articles to potentially millions of additional readers and brought their claims to life. Former Microsoft editors told CNN that these types of false articles, and virtually any other articles from low-quality websites, would be featured prominently if Microsoft were not using AI. He said that it would not have happened.
Lynn Pfeiffer, who worked as a contractor for Microsoft on and off for eight years, said she received a call in May 2020 informing her that her entire team was being laid off.
2020 was 2020, a Microsoft spokesperson told CNN in a statement on Wednesday that the company has begun the transition to “personalized feeds” that are “algorithmically tailored to your audience’s interests.” He said he did.
Pfeuffer’s work as the site’s lifestyle editor included selecting and curating the stories featured across Microsoft’s sites.
“Our editorial team is very close-knit, very talented, and we’ve all worked together for a long time,” Pfüfer told CNN. The group also included veteran journalists, and she said she took her responsibilities as a curator seriously.
“I don’t think people realize how many people use it.” [MSN]” she told CNN. “We had to take responsibility for what we put on the site because so many people could read it and be swayed by it.”
Microsoft declined to say how many (if any) human editors still curate the site, or whether it’s all done by AI and algorithms.
As she scrolled through Microsoft’s homepage a few weeks ago, Pfeuffer said the portal she and her colleagues once curated seemed unrecognizable. The site features articles that are objectively false and outlandish, as well as overtly bipartisan articles with headlines like “Should America Get Rid of Biden Forever?” “The dark side of the unfolding catastrophe under Joe Biden” also became famous.
These articles CNN observed on Microsoft’s homepage were not published by trusted, established news organizations, and instead had little to no information about who was behind them or details of their editorial standards. It was sent from a small site.
Pfaffer said that while she and her editorial colleagues worked there, these sites and headlines were never featured prominently on Microsoft’s home page, adding, “There are these websites that look like facts, “I was appalled that it was not a legitimate news source disseminating false information.” It’s on the homepage. ”
“We tried to cover everything very fairly from all sides and tried not to take political positions on the topic,” she told CNN.
It was these sensational headlines that caught the attention of Ferris Kawar, a sustainability manager and father of two in Santa Monica, California.
After a recent software update, Kawar’s default web browser was changed to Microsoft Edge, and his home page also switched to Microsoft.
“It felt like I was standing in line at the grocery store reading the front page of the National Enquirer,” Kawar told CNN.
“I think Microsoft is a pretty reliable company,” he said. “I don’t consider them political in any way. But this definitely seemed like the content being pushed was skewed to the right.”
Microsoft and its president Brad Smith published extensively about Responsible use of AI.
However, the company provided few specifics in response to CNN’s questions.
“As with any product or service, we continue to adjust our processes, constantly update existing policies, and define new policies to address emerging trends,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday. ” he said. We are committed to addressing the recent issue of low-quality articles posted to our feeds, and we are working closely with our content partners to identify and address issues and ensure that our partners meet our standards. We make sure that the requirements are met. ”
However, the Guardian said in a letter to the company on Tuesday that the company had “failed to provide substantive answers” to the paper’s questions about how AI is used in the field of journalism. Ta.
Kawar’s home page is no longer Microsoft and she has changed her default browser back to her preferred Google Chrome. But millions of people around the world still get their news from Microsoft.
“If you’re going to put all the news on the front page, you should take your responsibility seriously and understand that it has an impact on society,” Kawar said.