Editor’s Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations

We are reinforcing our editorial standards following this incident.

See full article...

 

[SubWoofer2]

What happens to the writer who has obviously been shovelling AI slop since well before he got caught?

Hmm, your "obvious" does not match the BlueSky post where the author talks about the first time use of an AI assistance tool (which failed).

Processes are there to fact find. Jumping to conclusions does not assist the process of establishing facts.

An employer is obliged to establish facts, and ensure the process is correctly followed in coming to conclusions.

Don't know if I'm ninja'd or not, in making this post.

 

[SubWoofer2]

Don't usually post, but posting now to express appreciation for both author's work and observe that I can think of lots of scenarios consistent with posted statements that would not make this close to a firing offense.

I know that there is a real sense of betrayal, given that (for me at least) Ars is generally a bastion of standards and sanity, but if it is verified as an isolated occurrence about which everyone is honest within a short, but non-zero, amount of time, I can't see it as a nefarious plot, and I'm a bit surprised by the instantaneous vehemence here.

Likewise. It's been pretty full-on, and the vehemence is something of a surprise over the Monday morning coffee!

I am mindful that Trump told over 30,000 lies in his first administration, to the point where newspapers abandoned fact-checking him, the slew of lies was so large. He got his job back four years later.

While the situations are not quite comparable - I mean, nobody expects the most powerful person in the free world to be trustworthy, do they? Imagine! - it's certainly plain that Ars has standards and policies that are meaningful, and above those of the White House.

 

[SubWoofer2]

i am also curious as to how it actually happened. not to shame writers, i'm just curious about it.

UPDATE: this was indeed Benj

If you want answers, the BlueSky post is worth reading. Particularly if you are in that group who are already warming the tar and preparing the feathers.

Benj's statement of events has the ring of authenticity about it.

It's this sort of thing that a competent employer is obliged to consider and reflect on, as part of forming their opinion about circumstances, policy breaches, and next steps.

 

[SubWoofer2]

The author has damaged his credibility by publishing fabricated material. Any rationale for publishing those fabrications should be met with great skepticism in light of the exact fabrications he’s attempting to rationalize.

I don't think the legal test for an employer's investigation into events requires that the employer comes from a position of "great skepticism". In fact, that would be wrong. More properly, the employer's enquiry should be an objective search with opportunity to "please explain" and to make reasonable enquiry, and to treat the explanations received as a starting point.

Disregarding the explanation out of hand - which is what you imply - is a process failure.

In the law in my jurisdiction (not USA) if that process failure happens, then penalties imposed by the employer can be cast aside and the employee continues in their role, even if the actual offending thing happened beyond doubt.

I know things are different in the USA. We see reality TV shows where "You're fired" is an instant termination. Given that employment is linked to healthcare security, it must make for a form of employer-employee servility relationship which I find hard to get my head around.

 

[SubWoofer2]

I guess the only other thing to say is that expecting an investigation to take place over a holiday weekend involving an ill employee with a conclusion communicated to the commentariat within 24, 48, or 72 hours, would be open to accusations of being rushed and not taking sufficient time to review and consider the facts.

Ars taking time, is wise and prudent.

Also, you like your employees to be in good health, so they are at the top of their game. I also get a sense that Ars works as a team, which is perhaps why Benj was submitting copy from his bed.

I work in healthcare, and like to bring a sense of mission to my profession. So from that perspective, to Benj: get well soon!

 

[SubWoofer2]

Benj did not write (or imply) the tool was used for the first time. He merely mentioned it was “experimental”.

After that tool’s failure he then “pasted the text into ChatGPT”, not saying anything about whether that’s his usual workflow that he has done a hundred times or something he only did once.

Certainly you'd want to ask questions about these matters as part of your enquiries as employer, yes.

The answers could also, [edit for clarity] once the immediate investigation is wrapped [end edit] for example, go into the realm of declaring whether AI was used in the generation of text published under a byline. (Something which I do, a lesson learned from observing one of Australia's biggest management consultancies screwing up). Root causes, systems learnings, etc.

 

[SubWoofer2]

Benj did not write (or imply) the tool was used for the first time. He merely mentioned it was “experimental”.

After that tool’s failure he then “pasted the text into ChatGPT”, not saying anything about whether that’s his usual workflow that he has done a hundred times or something he only did once.

From Ken Fishers article at the top of the discussion:

We have reviewed recent work and have not identified additional issues. At this time, this appears to be an isolated incident.

 

[SubWoofer2]

I've found AI to be terrible as a search engine too, and a leading cause of the degradation of Google's search results in recent years.

For mine, google's full-force enshittification dates to 2019 and its strategy change to being an advertising company, no longer a search company.

SEO had been causing grief for some years prior.

The big major hint to future enshittification was dropping phrase search, about 2011 IIRC. No more [item]AND[item].

None of these is AI.

 

[SubWoofer2]

However, if sources are to be verified by an editor, then the kind of editor normally tasked with such verification would be a copyeditor. (And most copyeditors I know are already overworked.)

Ah, yes, the copy editor. Haven't heard that phrase in years, perhaps decades. No- one's willing to pay for what is perceived as a QC role.

The publishing equivalent of having someone else check your code.

 

[SubWoofer2]

Was this like the situation, last May, that was an embarrassment to the Chicago Sun-Times?

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/20/nx-s1-5405022/fake-summer-reading-list-ai

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on the perspective, perhaps outrage, you want to bring.

In that instance the fakery was the guts of the story. The story collapsed without the invented bits.

Whereas in this case, the body text carried the essentials of the story notwithstanding the "quotes".

 

[SubWoofer2]

What I'm not clear on is: Will there be more investigation?

That the investigation conducted over a holiday weekend while an employee was sick, will be declared finished and completed in full on Tuesday morning?

I would be confident as a complete bystander to suggest: perhaps not. Indeed, "unlikely" comes to mind.

 

[SubWoofer2]

The only criticism I have for Ars itself is pulling the article and comments down. I shouldn’t have to go sleuthing to find the original article as it was published.

I don't mind the sleuthing that I did. On balance, in this new age where information and misinformation is hoovered up instantly, and rebroadcast widely and loudly, it makes sense to withdraw rather than perpetuate.

 

[SubWoofer2]

Ars isn't saying they aren't responsible for pulling the piece. On the contrary: any request to do so by the author was not mentioned.

Yes, pulling a piece with inaccuracies is reasonable.

I too think it's reasonable to cover in the explanatory article, every conceivable angle that would, could, or might be mentioned by the commentariat, when pulling a piece as a holiday weekend is about to start and the main thing is simply to pull it down swiftly, pending next steps.

 

[SubWoofer2]

i rewatched The Man From Earth last night. i still think it's a great film, even if it does assign a little too much importance to the religious aspect. but what it really made me wonder is: do people really still watch films on DVD? i only have a DVD-quality copy of it because i can't find a BD, and even for a film that relies so little on visual fidelity, it was really very distracting how low quality everything was.

the only reason i ask this is because i've seen a couple of posts recently where someone said "i don't have the DVD, so i watched it on streaming". is "DVD" just a synonym for any physical media now? or are people really still watching films on DVD on their 100" TVs?

Now, this is an interesting line of discussion during the "what shall we talk about in between the pony postings" part of this thread.

I have the same question, but in relation to audio, not visual. If you have 4K, Blu-Ray, or 8K, are there reasons why would you watch DVD or Laserdisc (A few friends are laserdisc collectors). If you have 24-bit, or Surround, or Atmos, would you listen to mp3s? What are your reasons, in these days of great amounts of data storage and no reason to have the aural equivalents of DVD quality. DVD quality being something which many people are perfectly happy with.

I'm fine with people watching DVDs or listening to mp3s.

What's odd is that a small portion of folk will decry high-end audio gear while meantime buying 4K or 8K TVs. Which makes a mockery of their mockery.

I've found it's easier for people to understand spending thousands of dollars on audio gear, when it's explained in terms of spending thousands of dollars on video/TV. Put in those terms, the understanding dawns. "So you're more aural than visual" is how the NLP people would have it.

Anyway, in this house you'll find DVDs and no mp3 (but high-res files (audio)). In other people's houses you'll find mp3 and no DVD (but high-res files (visual)).

 

[SubWoofer2]

Confusingly, Copilot has now gained a Search mode which does focus on giving you the citations. At the moment that is separate to Bing Search and, unfortunately, it is vastly better than keyword search in the case where you would otherwise have semantic difficulties, like searching for stuff about the band "The The."

But it's quite possible that once Microsoft have kicked that around a bit they'll put it behind Bing by default, and then you will indeed be using that engine whenever you just use Bing.

(The only thing that can save us here is that no-one uses Bing.)

If I recall correctly Google removed the functionality to do phrase searching about 2011. The keys are identified by number, and /45 (or whatever the key was for phrase search) was deleted a long time ago. So "search this string" or "thisANDthat" failed. Wiser heads here on Ars will have chapter and verse.

Anyway, it's a clue as to how enshittified Google have made the web while increasing their fortune, that suddenly it's 2010 again.

Woot.

 

[SubWoofer2]

You know, I often wonder whether I would qualify under law as a "public figure" or a "private figure" these days.

My kids used to occasionally ask me "Dad, are you famous?" and I'm like... fuck. I dunno how to answer that. Maybe? Can we establish some kind of scale...?

National-level recognition may come into it. How many New Zealands worth of fame is national fame in the USA worth? Is it proportional to population? Are you world famous in New Zealand? Can we use a "New Zealand" as a unit of fame, in the same way that one Fripp is equivalent to 12 ordinary guitarists? Is a Salter equivalent to good lemonish stuff?

 

[SubWoofer2]

I prefer ponies to CAPS.

 

[SubWoofer2]

At this point I feel like this thread is waiting for Godot.

Be positive! Perhaps 42 will be the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything.