Inserted AI-generated Microsoft poll about woman’s death rankles The Guardian
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"Intelligence". Right.
We need a better name for what we refer to as AI. Something like "Automated Generator" or something. Not only because it's clearly not intelligent by human definitions, but also to better set expectations. To audience, users, and implementors alike.
We need a better name for what we refer to as AI. Something like "Automated Generator" or something. Not only because it's clearly not intelligent by human definitions, but also to better set expectations. To audience, users, and implementors alike.
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What do I have to click on in your post to see the results? I don't want to pick until I know which way the crowd is leaning.
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Crass uninformed speculation about a tragedy?
Generative AI, raised on a hearty diet of content dredged from the Internet, continues to reflect its upbringing.
Generative AI, raised on a hearty diet of content dredged from the Internet, continues to reflect its upbringing.
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Microsoft Start is primarily on Surface Duo 1/2 phones.
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With Google’s general declining utility in all its consumer-facing products, especially search and news, there’s a huge opening for Microsoft to start peeling off core google users. They’ve had some success with search and browser, but their strategy to somehow make their news platform even worse than google news is really baffling.
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ubercurmudgeon
Ars Tribunus Militum
But it offers the potential to generate revenue out of thin air (not really, but that's the jist of the hype) which is the dream of the executive class.
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If Aurich and Benj added an AI generated poll, it would greatly enhance this article.
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Oh, I see. Think how valuable it could be if combined with blockchain!
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Human editing before publishing?
Archaic! Expensive! For Luddites! /s
Content without responsibility. Anything goes to feed the monetizing machine. Get those eyeballs.
Society is fucking doomed.
Archaic! Expensive! For Luddites! /s
Content without responsibility. Anything goes to feed the monetizing machine. Get those eyeballs.
Society is fucking doomed.
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Why shouldn't they? The publication is two centuries old and continues to be well respected.
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As a retired journalist and scholastic journalism teacher, this story puts on full display the failure of AI to take into account the human element. It also puts on display the lack of a human element in the entire Microsoft culture. There are certainly some news organizations out there that would put such a poll next to a horror story, but The Guardian is certainly not one of them. You may certainly beat me up for it, but from my seat this is the difference when comparing Microsoft and Apple and Alphabet. Apple does a much better job at connecting to their human market which is why Alphabet was willing to pay so much for their exclusive search deal with Apple. When Bill Gates first played with the MacOS, to build the first versions of Excel and Word, he realized that human beings would find the GUI a lot easier to use than MS-DOS.
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Microsoft Start articles appear by default on the new tab page in Microsoft Edge, and in the News and Weather widget in the Windows 10 taskbar. So it has all the reach of Windows.
Until Windows users inevitably wade through MS's passive-aggressive pleading and nagging to download another browser, anyway.
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Bit of an understatement 'rankles the Guardian'... more like, offends public decency. Not even a tabloid rag would speculate on a cause of death like this
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Commenters always think they know everything but in reality, know nothing most of the time. If I was running a popular news website, I wouldn't have comments, only smooth jazz.Benj Edwards said:
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No "AI" can take into account the human element. All things like this are simply glorified statistical word generators.
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Tay the chatbot wasn't enough of a clue to begin with where this was going?
Given that precedent this is just par for the course.
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Microsoft's Brad Smith's profile says:
I purpose a new poll...
Such a person would be responsible for the automated association to such a poll (implying such things as suicide) on a sensitive subject as death because:
Btw, I doubt any of the above poll questions are true but maybe Brad Smith should be horrified that this happen under his watch and publish a statement accordingly.
I purpose a new poll...
Such a person would be responsible for the automated association to such a poll (implying such things as suicide) on a sensitive subject as death because:
- Brad Smith (with an estimated worth of $200+ million) has become incapable of sympathizing with others?
- Brad Smith likes using polls in a callous way as a "tool"?
- Brad Smith likes using polls in a callous way as a "weapon"?
- Brad Smith actually thinks this demonstrates the tech sector assuming responsibility (and he is just incompetent at it)?
- Brad Smith does it because government has not told him he shouldn't yet?
Btw, I doubt any of the above poll questions are true but maybe Brad Smith should be horrified that this happen under his watch and publish a statement accordingly.
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The Guardian is blaming Microsoft because Microsoft republishes articles from the Guardian onto their own MSN website.
When they republished the article they let an unsupervised generative computer program pull key phrases from the article and turn it into a poll that was automatically published in the article by Microsoft without the consent of the Guardian and with no human editorial review.
This is likely a situation that isn't covered by their licensing contract, but I bet it will be the next time the contract comes up to be renewed if the Guardian decides to let them renew it.
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Microsoft are also the party publishing the poll next to licensed content from The Guardian, and that seems to be what this is about. Note the newspaper’s complaint isn’t as much about AI as it is about how licensees are allowed to use the content they licensed.
Yes, in this case, there was an added level of stupidity in that Micosoft apparently believed its own AI hype enough to let an LLM call the shots, but the core issue seems to be the pairing of licensed content with offensive content and the damage that could do to the licensor’s brand. (Of course, LLMs are much more likely to generate offensive stuff than any human editor.)
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Who the fuck asked for AI-generated polls? No (reasonable) consumer wants this, or anything even remotely like it. You can't possibly rely on the data collected in the poll for anything--the chance of the AI having generated a confusing, leading, or otherwise biased question is too high.
I'm guessing it's something along the lines of 'articles presented with polls have higher engagement and therefore command higher ad revenue'. Ugh, I feel like I need a shower after typing that.
Edit: Between this trend and the trend of political campaigns whipping up outrage using a "poll" with lots of extremely loaded words and leading questions, I'm starting to think it would be nice to ban the use of polls for any purpose other than actual data collection.
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When an article is syndicated, are there restrictions on what content can be published proximate to the article? Are there restrictions on advertising, editorials, art, user polls/comment sections?
I get that a poll like this is more tabloid like than Microsoft usually runs, but has there ever been restrictions on poor taste user engagement techniques with human oversight?
What is our point of comparison?
I get that a poll like this is more tabloid like than Microsoft usually runs, but has there ever been restrictions on poor taste user engagement techniques with human oversight?
What is our point of comparison?
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Hey now, we humans are quite capable of crass uninformed speculation about a tragedy without the help of AI!
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