“Like I told ya, what I said. Steal your face right off your head.”
— Robert Hunter
Few things horrify me. I’m not afraid of snakes or spiders. Not bats, rats, or feral cats. But increasingly, technology is giving me the fear.
Last week, a friend sent me an OPB article about the Ashland Daily Tidings and how an artificial intelligence (AI) ghost hacker company had coopted the defunct publication. It was enough to make the skin crawl.
The small newspaper out of Ashland, which was established in 1876 and closed in 2023, was resurrected as an online news site shortly after it closed. Or so it would seem.
The masthead was the same. Dozens of articles poured out of the online “newspaper.” Articles about area restaurants and activities filled the site.
Journalists who had once worked for the newspaper and others who lived in Oregon or had visited were shocked to see their names in the bylines of articles on the Ashland Daily Tidings website. They had no clue that their identities had been stolen for this bogus scam.
The scariest part of this story is not the stolen identities or even the desecration of a centennial Oregon newspaper. What is really scary is that the articles created by artificial intelligence were coherent, full of detail, had context, and appeared to be made by a local American journalist.
As newspapers continue to die at a horrifying rate (OK – that’s another thing that scares me), “alternative media” sources have grown exponentially, fueled by AI and online influencers. Artificial intelligence has played a significant part in the death of the American newspaper. But until recently, it was easy to spot an AI article.
The paragraphs were often overly expressive. The grammar was a little off. The cadence and voice were machine-like. But the machines have learned. The Ashland Daily Tidings was overtaken by a rag-tag group of hackers from South Africa with very capable AI programs. The lesson? More of the same is coming our way.
When speaking with old friends in different parts of the country, I often ask if they subscribe to their local newspaper. Knowing that we are publishing a weekly newspaper, most say, “No, but I really should.” Those same friends often send me stories with questionable information and shaky sources.
The AI frontier is vast and appears to be spreading without restraint. Lawmakers are playing catchup. Last year, the Oregon Legislature passed the first bills on artificial intelligence in the state’s history. The two bills were symbolic in nature. One created a task force to further evaluate the threat of AI, and the other made campaigns disclose if content for elections had been created using AI.
Hardly game changers but a first step nonetheless.
At the federal level, Democrats and Republicans have talked tough on the issue but have caved to big tech money, which dumped unprecedented amounts into the Presidential and Congressional races this year.
This week, Japanese firm Softbank pledged $100 billion to U.S.-based projects. At Mar-a-Lago, President-elect Trump stood by Japanese tycoon Masayoshi Son, who said that SoftBank's $100 billion investment will go to building AI infrastructure.
The changes are going to keep coming, and the world is going to grow more confusing. What we read and what we see will become increasingly blurred. What is real and what is not will become harder to tell.
So, when you open a news article, make sure it is from a reputable source, or at least one that strives to be. And if they tell you that legacy media is “dead,” ask if AI is alive.
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