IT playing the victim. They were no victim, they thought they had a juicy click friendly ragebait article and are only sorry they got caught out.
They don’t apologize for a ridiculous and absurd article, instead there have defended it. Mad.
It calls into question why the Irish Times exists anymore, completely intellectually redundant.
Not even gonna give them the satisfaction of a click.
The obvious issue is that I refuse to believe it’s that easy to get an article published in a national newspaper.
How many aspiring journalists have contacted the Irish Times hoping to get an article published, having spent years at Uni studying, having experience at a local media outlet, a portfolio of work…..
And yet a person who doesn’t even exist emails in and they say yeah let’s go with it.
[removed]
What’s the background on this? Must have missed it the other day and didn’t read the referenced article
Absolute shambles
The problem I have with it isn’t as much that it’s AI generated, it’s that a fake article written by a non existent person jumped straight into print with no due diligence because it fit the bill of what the editorial staff thought was appropriate for their opinion section. Absolute nonsense they all signed off on because it fits the template as their typical presumably human written content. Present the right image, tick the right boxes and you’ll be published without a second look.
>We don’t take this lightly. It was a breach of the trust between The Irish Times and its readers, and we are genuinely sorry. The incident has highlighted a gap in our pre-publication procedures. We need to make them more robust – and we will
The IT, were this some other organisation, would be calling for a head and definitely wouldn’t accept this kind of tripe as an apology that fails to answer any of the questions raised by the incident.
This isn’t “a gap”. We saw the emails between Jennifer O’Connell and the person who submitted the article. A gap requires there to have been some procedure that, sadly, didn’t anticipate something. This is a clear case of no checks whatsoever being done. None could have been done, because at the most basic level they would need to determine whether someone is the person they claim to be.
I hope it’s been a growing up moment for Jennifer O’Connell who maybe has learned now that having a real job with responsibility is hard – given how quick she’s been to tell others that they’re shit at their jobs.
They’re missing the point entirely. It isn’t particularly important that it was AI generated. It’s that it was faux rage inducing clickbait trash.
Did ChatGPT write that too?
This is complete crap and deflection by the IT, the person who submitted it could have an opinion, from personal experience and maybe a different view point from the norm, then write that all out and ask an AI to write it better, I wouldn’t have an issue with that.
However they printed some rubbish, then when it was pointed out to be AI generated they went to the author and the author obviously couldn’t back up the story, so AI bad and they fell for AI. They didn’t, they fell for a juicy story and did no due diligence on the author.
I’m applying for a job today, got an AI to tart up my answer to one of those horrible competency questions, the difference is, it’s still my experience being used in the answer, not the AI writing an answer the recruiter hopefully wants to hear.
I really don’t understand people who are trying incredibly hard to make the content of the article the problem here. Opinion pieces have included “poke the bear” type contents for decades and will be here after we’re in all gone in one form or the other. The idea that newspapers shouldn’t include certain kinds of content seems an overreaction to me. The policies of the Irish Times on how it publishes opinion pieces isn’t going to affect my life.
The much more interesting question is the role of AI programs on every industry going forward. The way AI language software works will have a very tangible impact on our way of living. It seems to me that those focusing on the Irish Times desire to publish high engagement content in a time when newspapers are financially dwindling is really missing the forest for the trees here
There are a few issues at play here, including being deceived. But for me, the biggest is why they thought it was fit for print in the first place. Even if the author had been 100% real, this is not something that should have been printed.
Fucking eejit.
The byline picture looks faked. It’s a completely new author. Quick Zoom call would allay doubts.
Desperately low standards from the IT.
The editor still chose to publish it regardless of who wrote it !
I had my twitter posts to Jennifer O’ Connell being removed on thursday night when i started pointing it out. I had to message and tag other people. I knew something was up straight away when i read and seen the picture.
They’re going on about AI but you must not forget that they were trying to pit people against one another and it’s stuff like this that drives people to anger like we seen with the tents in Dublin being burned out. I’m always wary reading news articles about various topics but more often then not they’ll have an agenda.
Funnily enough i think that Jennifer O’ Connell used to work at TheJournal.ie and that paper banned me many years ago from commenting on their website as i used to post contradicting them when it came to issues but mostly on Government and as we’ve all seen they censor much more now, the last few years.
EDIT: She’s after posting the link to the IT apology but she’s limited to who can reply to her post. Just goes to show they don’t want to be caught out again. lol
The self regard at the heart of this “message” is completely at odds with what that “newspaper” is: the IT has been an organ of colonialism in the country and continues today as an establishment mouthpiece. I’m not surprised they were caught by this drivel: anything that attacks ordinary Irish people is deemed worthy.
I used to work in media and there was a requirement for sue Diligence on everything. This is a bullshit excuse and the IT should have to answer for them
Can anyone here get the various webcams in the IT editor’s offices to be live streaming tomorrow morning? For the lolz
I noticed this article wasn’t behind a pay wall
Yes the issue isn’t so much that the article was AI generated. It’s that a lazy and racist opinion piece was churned out as “content” on a national and respected newspaper.
> It made an argument that has been aired in other countries but related it to the Irish context.
Where else are fake tan is cultural appropriation articles being published ?
What a joke!!
Very basic checks were not done. The Irish Times was NOT a ‘victim’ here. They were just lazy and too eager to publish an article that ticked a lot of their own belief boxes.
Lol someone should churn out another AI article with the opposite opinion saying the use of fake tan by Irish people is evidence of self hate and anti white racism, and that people should love their light skin which is optimised for vitamin D production in europes low light climate, see if that gets through. Does the IT pay for opinion pieces?
Lol, they’re trying to spin it as if AI is the problem and not the fact that they did absolutely zero checks to make sure this person was who they said they were.
In our mad pursuit for the scoop…. We members of the press sometiiiiiiimes… make mistakes…. Irish Times would like to make the following corrections.
The article was an offensive pile of shit, even if it were a serious one created by an actual author. They are some bunch of clowns for publishing this regardless of the source.
Zero oversight is the problem.
No fact checking, no source checking. It wasn’t just an AI generated story, the person who wrote it does not exist either. There are multiple levels of fucking failure here and I think the IT needs to step right the fuck back and understand this.
Nothing about that recent article about how gross and unsexy Irish men are by the beach? It read like a sex and the city inner monologue. Absolute trash.
They are not victims. The AI angle is not important here. The fact that they thought a story about fake tan being problematic was suitable for publication is the problem.
They should confront this, explain why on Earth this nonsense should be published.
I dunno if it’s the conspiracy theorist in me but it kinda seems like people wanted to show how ‘scary’ AI generated stuff is 🤷♂️
Anyone who has ever even met a South American would have known it was fake because none of them like the term “Latinx”!
> For us at The Irish Times, it is an important means of making good on our founding principles. Those principles describe a view of the world that is open-minded, tolerant, curious, respectful of divergent views and always attentive to the needs of minorities.
I wish media people would realise this stuff doesn’t help minorities in any way, publishing that kind of nonsense only serves the types who already dislike minorities and wish to diminish and lampoon any efforts on their behalf.
Even if the article had been genuine, all it would have served to do is provide content for the “anti-woke” crowd to dine out on for months.
It’s okay Irish Times, I forgive you for being duped by AI. Now, back to your “view of the world that is open-minded, tolerant, curious, and respectful of divergent views”
Are Irish women just horrible racists who put on black face every day because they don’t care about hurting people of colour?
In other words: *”Sorry bout that, next time we’ll wait till were sure a properly divisive racist Shitshow lands on our desk before we gleefully hammer normal Irish people good and proper with shame, slander, and sanctimony”*
36 comments
IT playing the victim. They were no victim, they thought they had a juicy click friendly ragebait article and are only sorry they got caught out.
They don’t apologize for a ridiculous and absurd article, instead there have defended it. Mad.
It calls into question why the Irish Times exists anymore, completely intellectually redundant.
Not even gonna give them the satisfaction of a click.
The obvious issue is that I refuse to believe it’s that easy to get an article published in a national newspaper.
How many aspiring journalists have contacted the Irish Times hoping to get an article published, having spent years at Uni studying, having experience at a local media outlet, a portfolio of work…..
And yet a person who doesn’t even exist emails in and they say yeah let’s go with it.
[removed]
What’s the background on this? Must have missed it the other day and didn’t read the referenced article
Absolute shambles
The problem I have with it isn’t as much that it’s AI generated, it’s that a fake article written by a non existent person jumped straight into print with no due diligence because it fit the bill of what the editorial staff thought was appropriate for their opinion section. Absolute nonsense they all signed off on because it fits the template as their typical presumably human written content. Present the right image, tick the right boxes and you’ll be published without a second look.
>We don’t take this lightly. It was a breach of the trust between The Irish Times and its readers, and we are genuinely sorry. The incident has highlighted a gap in our pre-publication procedures. We need to make them more robust – and we will
The IT, were this some other organisation, would be calling for a head and definitely wouldn’t accept this kind of tripe as an apology that fails to answer any of the questions raised by the incident.
This isn’t “a gap”. We saw the emails between Jennifer O’Connell and the person who submitted the article. A gap requires there to have been some procedure that, sadly, didn’t anticipate something. This is a clear case of no checks whatsoever being done. None could have been done, because at the most basic level they would need to determine whether someone is the person they claim to be.
I hope it’s been a growing up moment for Jennifer O’Connell who maybe has learned now that having a real job with responsibility is hard – given how quick she’s been to tell others that they’re shit at their jobs.
They’re missing the point entirely. It isn’t particularly important that it was AI generated. It’s that it was faux rage inducing clickbait trash.
Did ChatGPT write that too?
This is complete crap and deflection by the IT, the person who submitted it could have an opinion, from personal experience and maybe a different view point from the norm, then write that all out and ask an AI to write it better, I wouldn’t have an issue with that.
However they printed some rubbish, then when it was pointed out to be AI generated they went to the author and the author obviously couldn’t back up the story, so AI bad and they fell for AI. They didn’t, they fell for a juicy story and did no due diligence on the author.
I’m applying for a job today, got an AI to tart up my answer to one of those horrible competency questions, the difference is, it’s still my experience being used in the answer, not the AI writing an answer the recruiter hopefully wants to hear.
I really don’t understand people who are trying incredibly hard to make the content of the article the problem here. Opinion pieces have included “poke the bear” type contents for decades and will be here after we’re in all gone in one form or the other. The idea that newspapers shouldn’t include certain kinds of content seems an overreaction to me. The policies of the Irish Times on how it publishes opinion pieces isn’t going to affect my life.
The much more interesting question is the role of AI programs on every industry going forward. The way AI language software works will have a very tangible impact on our way of living. It seems to me that those focusing on the Irish Times desire to publish high engagement content in a time when newspapers are financially dwindling is really missing the forest for the trees here
There are a few issues at play here, including being deceived. But for me, the biggest is why they thought it was fit for print in the first place. Even if the author had been 100% real, this is not something that should have been printed.
Fucking eejit.
The byline picture looks faked. It’s a completely new author. Quick Zoom call would allay doubts.
Desperately low standards from the IT.
The editor still chose to publish it regardless of who wrote it !
I had my twitter posts to Jennifer O’ Connell being removed on thursday night when i started pointing it out. I had to message and tag other people. I knew something was up straight away when i read and seen the picture.
They’re going on about AI but you must not forget that they were trying to pit people against one another and it’s stuff like this that drives people to anger like we seen with the tents in Dublin being burned out. I’m always wary reading news articles about various topics but more often then not they’ll have an agenda.
Funnily enough i think that Jennifer O’ Connell used to work at TheJournal.ie and that paper banned me many years ago from commenting on their website as i used to post contradicting them when it came to issues but mostly on Government and as we’ve all seen they censor much more now, the last few years.
EDIT: She’s after posting the link to the IT apology but she’s limited to who can reply to her post. Just goes to show they don’t want to be caught out again. lol
The self regard at the heart of this “message” is completely at odds with what that “newspaper” is: the IT has been an organ of colonialism in the country and continues today as an establishment mouthpiece. I’m not surprised they were caught by this drivel: anything that attacks ordinary Irish people is deemed worthy.
I used to work in media and there was a requirement for sue Diligence on everything. This is a bullshit excuse and the IT should have to answer for them
Can anyone here get the various webcams in the IT editor’s offices to be live streaming tomorrow morning? For the lolz
I noticed this article wasn’t behind a pay wall
Yes the issue isn’t so much that the article was AI generated. It’s that a lazy and racist opinion piece was churned out as “content” on a national and respected newspaper.
> It made an argument that has been aired in other countries but related it to the Irish context.
Where else are fake tan is cultural appropriation articles being published ?
What a joke!!
Very basic checks were not done. The Irish Times was NOT a ‘victim’ here. They were just lazy and too eager to publish an article that ticked a lot of their own belief boxes.
Lol someone should churn out another AI article with the opposite opinion saying the use of fake tan by Irish people is evidence of self hate and anti white racism, and that people should love their light skin which is optimised for vitamin D production in europes low light climate, see if that gets through. Does the IT pay for opinion pieces?
Lol, they’re trying to spin it as if AI is the problem and not the fact that they did absolutely zero checks to make sure this person was who they said they were.
In our mad pursuit for the scoop…. We members of the press sometiiiiiiimes… make mistakes…. Irish Times would like to make the following corrections.
The article was an offensive pile of shit, even if it were a serious one created by an actual author. They are some bunch of clowns for publishing this regardless of the source.
Zero oversight is the problem.
No fact checking, no source checking. It wasn’t just an AI generated story, the person who wrote it does not exist either. There are multiple levels of fucking failure here and I think the IT needs to step right the fuck back and understand this.
Nothing about that recent article about how gross and unsexy Irish men are by the beach? It read like a sex and the city inner monologue. Absolute trash.
They are not victims. The AI angle is not important here. The fact that they thought a story about fake tan being problematic was suitable for publication is the problem.
They should confront this, explain why on Earth this nonsense should be published.
I dunno if it’s the conspiracy theorist in me but it kinda seems like people wanted to show how ‘scary’ AI generated stuff is 🤷♂️
Anyone who has ever even met a South American would have known it was fake because none of them like the term “Latinx”!
> For us at The Irish Times, it is an important means of making good on our founding principles. Those principles describe a view of the world that is open-minded, tolerant, curious, respectful of divergent views and always attentive to the needs of minorities.
I wish media people would realise this stuff doesn’t help minorities in any way, publishing that kind of nonsense only serves the types who already dislike minorities and wish to diminish and lampoon any efforts on their behalf.
Even if the article had been genuine, all it would have served to do is provide content for the “anti-woke” crowd to dine out on for months.
It’s okay Irish Times, I forgive you for being duped by AI. Now, back to your “view of the world that is open-minded, tolerant, curious, and respectful of divergent views”
Are Irish women just horrible racists who put on black face every day because they don’t care about hurting people of colour?
In other words: *”Sorry bout that, next time we’ll wait till were sure a properly divisive racist Shitshow lands on our desk before we gleefully hammer normal Irish people good and proper with shame, slander, and sanctimony”*