Australian science magazine slammed over AI-generated articles
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming a major point of discussion for publishers and musicians. One of Australia’s prominent science magazines, Cosmos, has come under scrutiny for publishing AI-generated articles that have been criticized for being inaccurate or overly simplified.
Published by Australia’s state-backed national science agency, Cosmos utilized Open AI’s GPT-4 to generate six articles in the past month. While the magazine did disclose the use of AI, the Science Journalists Association of Australia raised serious concerns about the content.
Concerns Raised by Experts
Association president Jackson Ryan highlighted issues with an AI-generated Cosmos article titled ‘What happens to our bodies after death?’ The descriptions of scientific processes in the article were found to be incorrect or overly simplistic.
For instance, the AI service mentioned that rigor mortis sets in 3 to 4 hours after death, a claim that contradicts scientific research showing the timing to be less definitive. Additionally, the article inaccurately described autolysis as a “self-breaking” process, which experts deemed as a poor explanation.
Ryan expressed that such inaccuracies could harm the credibility and trustworthiness of the publication among its readers.
Response from the Science Agency
A spokesperson from the national science agency stated that the AI-generated content underwent fact-checking by a trained science communicator and was further reviewed by the Cosmos publishing team. The agency assured that they would continue to monitor the use of AI throughout the experiment.
However, Cosmos faced criticism for allocating a journalism grant to enhance its AI capabilities, potentially impacting the role of journalists within the organization.
Feedback from Former Editors
Gail MacCallum, a former editor of Cosmos, expressed her support for exploring AI but admitted discomfort with the idea of AI creating articles. Another former editor, Ian Connellan, revealed that he was unaware of the AI project and stated that he would have advised against it if consulted.
As the utilization of AI in content creation continues to grow, it has become a contentious issue for publishers and musicians. The New York Times recently filed a lawsuit against ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging unauthorized use of millions of articles to train their AI models.
These emerging AI technologies are facing legal challenges for leveraging internet content to develop systems that generate content based on simple prompts.
