Redditors have proven that artificial intelligence can never truly replace real writers after they succeeded in getting a news site to publish an AI-written article on a fake character they invented for World of Warcraft. This is just one of many examples of individuals proving that AI cannot replicate the creativity and accuracy of human writers. Recently, Black Mirror writer Charlie Brooker also shared the results of an experiment in which he had AI write an episode of the show, and it turned out to simply be a messy mashup of synopses of other episodes the AI found on the internet.
Despite the evidence, companies are still attempting to use AI to avoid having to hire and pay actual writers. While some news sites have responded to the rise of AI-generation writing tools like ChatGPT by instituting policies prohibiting their writers from submitting AI-generated content, others have tried to capitalize on the usage of AI. According to The Guardian, a recent study from Newsguard found almost 50 news sites on the internet that published almost solely AI-generated content. Meanwhile, other sites are trying to bolster production by using a mixture of human writers and AI-generated content. Of course, AI-generated articles are notorious for being filled with factual errors, bizarre wording, and spreading misinformation.
To prove just how unreliable AI-generated news writing is, Reddit users hatched a brilliant plan that played out just as they expected it would.
Glorbo proves AI can’t be trusted to write news articles
Last month, Redditor kaefer_kriegerin posted to the World of Warcraft subreddit about their excitement for the introduction of a new character to the franchise—Glorbo. Closer inspection of the post will show its true purpose, as the Redditor mentions wanting “some major bot operated news website to publish an article about this.” Glorbo isn’t real, and he isn’t coming to World of Warcraft anytime soon. He is a fake character kaefer_kriegerin created to see if they could trick a website using AI into writing an article about Glorbo. Fellow Redditors quickly came to aid the cause and began commenting about more obviously fake World of Warcraft features like “Quackion, the Aspect of Ducks,” Glorbo’s mandatory item “Klikclac,” and the island of “Zoop.”
It didn’t take long for Z League’s The Portal, which covers gaming content, to publish an article titled “World of Warcraft (WoW) Players Excited for Glorbo’s Introduction.” Within the first few sentences, the article directly quotes kaefer_kriegerin’s statement about wanting a major bot operated news website to publish an article about Glorbo. It then goes on to detail how excited users were for Glorbo, although the character sparked “controversy” because of its mandatory item—Klikclac. Casual players don’t have time to “farm Zoop” for Klikclac, which puts them at a disadvantage. The article concluded by mentioning how one Redditor felt Glorbo had the potential to be the best quest since Quackion, the Aspect of Ducks.
Z League later realized what had occurred and deleted the Glorbo article. However, the beautiful thing about the internet is nothing is ever really gone. The article has been archived, and snapshots and news articles about Z League’s fumble have been abundant.
This informative article on Glorbo makes us excited for what else AI is capable of in the news industry. If websites keep using AI without even bothering to so much as proofread or fact-check the result of an AI-generated article, we might soon have an article about Glup Shitto’s highly anticipated return to the Star Wars franchise or why Goncharov is the best mafia movie of all time. We might even get an article about the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide and why this dangerous chemical compound must be banned. Now that readers are aware of how alarmingly easy it is to trick AI, we very well might need to anticipate many more Glorbo articles. Perhaps it will help news sites realize that just paying actual writers is a lot less painful than trying to live with the embarrassment of publishing an article about Glorbo, KliKclac, Zoop, and Quackion.
(featured image: Blizzard Entertainment)
