MAGGIE HARRISON, Futurism; Sports Illustrated Published Articles by Fake, AI-Generated Writers
"After we reached out with questions to the magazine's publisher, The Arena Group, all the AI-generated authors disappeared from Sports Illustrated's site without explanation.
Initially, our questions received no response. But after we published this story, an Arena Group spokesperson provided the following statement that blamed a contractor for the content..."
"The likely conclusions of some think tank reports, documents show, are discussed with donors — or even potential ones — before the research is complete. Drafts of the studies have been shared with donors whose opinions have then helped shape final reports. Donors have outlined how the resulting scholarship will be used as part of broader lobbying efforts. The think tanks also help donors promote their corporate brands, as Brookings does with JPMorgan Chase, whose $15.5 million contribution is the largest by a private corporation in the institution’s history. Despite these benefits, corporations can write off the donations as charitable contributions. Some tax experts say these arrangements may amount to improper subsidies by taxpayers if think tanks are providing specific services. “People think of think tanks as do-gooders, uncompromised and not bought like others in the political class,” said Bill Goodfellow, the executive director of the Center for International Policy, a Washington-based think tank. “But it’s absurd to suggest that donors don’t have influence. The danger is we in the think tank world are being corrupted in the same way as the political world. And all of us should be worried about it.” A group of Democratic state attorneys general is investigating whether Exxon Mobil worked with certain think tanks in past decades to cover up its understanding of fossil fuels’ impact on climate change, in part by financing reports questioning the science, a suggestion the company rejects. Executives at Brookings, the Center for Strategic and International Studies and other think tanks say they have systems in place to ensure that their reports are based on scholars’ independent conclusions."
"As soon as the show ended, producers from Capital Concerts owned up to the fact that not all of its footage was from the live fireworks show. (In the first segment of the display, while singer Cassadee Pope was singing, some scenes did show a cloudy sky.) “We showed a combination of the best fireworks from this year and previous years. It was the patriotic thing to do,” the “Capitol Fourth” account tweeted... A “Capitol Fourth” spokeswoman confirmed to us that because the weather was so overcast, the producers pulled together a combination of clips “to make the best television show.” She added this is the first time the producers have had to take such measures. Still, some viewers were not happy that PBS wasn’t upfront about the pre-recorded nature of the fireworks..."
"A painstaking review by The Post’s David A. Fahrenthold, comparing Mr. Trump’s public statements with available records of his giving, found a pattern of exaggeration and unfulfilled pledges... The truth is, Mr. Trump’s exaggerated eleemosynary claims match his long history of embroideries, overstatements and wildly inflated assertions of prowess in other endeavors. The GOP candidate’s whoppers come so fast and thick that it’s easy to lose track, and it’s tempting to ignore much of what he says. That would be a mistake. Contempt for the truth is a disqualifying feature in a candidate for the presidency."
"John L. Smith, a columnist for The Review-Journal who filed for bankruptcy while defending himself against a lawsuit brought by Mr. Adelson over a book Mr. Smith had written, said when reached by phone on Thursday that he would have to seek permission before speaking to a reporter. In a 2013 column about the lawsuit, Mr. Smith wrote that his lawyer had realized that “the case wasn’t about defamation, but about making me an object lesson for my newspaper and other journalists who dared to criticize the billionaire.” (Adelson eventually dropped the case.)... Asked whether he was concerned about conflicts arising between his newsroom and Mr. Adelson’s myriad business and political interests, Mr. Hengel said, “Yes, absolutely.” He said, too, that he had argued with the newspaper’s publisher, Jason Taylor, over Mr. Taylor’s decision to remove references in an online article by The Review-Journal that raised questions about the ownership. But, he said, “What we’ve got to go on right now is their statement that they are going to allow us to pursue journalism the way we should and the way we’re expected to. I am going to take them at their word on that, until they prove otherwise.”... Some remain skeptical. “I think there’s a lot of consternation, not just inside The Review-Journal, but outside,” said Jon Ralston, a veteran Nevada political journalist."
"A sting operation by the environmental group Greenpeace suggests that some researchers who dispute mainstream scientific conclusions on climate change are willing to conceal the sources of payment for their research, even if the money is purported to come from overseas corporations producing oil, gas and coal. Over a period of several months, two Greenpeace employees posed as representatives of energy companies and offered to pay prominent commentators on climate change to write papers that extolled the benefits of coal and carbon emissions. The Greenpeace workers also asked that the payments not be disclosed. Disclosure of funding for scientific research has been a flash point in the fight over climate change, especially in the case of published scientific research. The effort by Greenpeace, which has a long record of using aggressive tactics to make environmental statements, was to “unravel the story” of industry ties to denial of climate change, said Lawrence Carter, one of the Greenpeace employees involved in the subterfuge. “It shows a way that fossil fuel money can get into funding these climate skeptic campaign groups,” he added."
"An undercover sting by Greenpeace has revealed that two prominent climate sceptics were available for hire by the hour to write reports casting doubt on the dangers posed by global warming. Posing as consultants to fossil fuel companies, Greenpeace approached professors at leading US universities to commission reports touting the benefits of rising carbon dioxide levels and the benefits of coal. The views of both academics are well outside mainstream climate science. The findings point to how paid-for information challenging the consensus on climate science could be placed into the public domain without the ultimate source of funding being revealed."
"One chapter appears to give the signatory countries (referred to as “parties”) greater power to stop embarrassing information going public. The treaty would give signatories the ability to curtail legal proceedings if the theft of information is “detrimental to a party’s economic interests, international relations, or national defense or national security” – in other words, presumably, if a trial would cause the information to spread... “The text of the TPP’s intellectual property chapter confirms advocates warnings that this deal poses a grave threat to global freedom of expression and basic access to things like medicine and information,” said Evan Greer, campaign director of internet activist group Fight for the Future. “But the sad part is that no one should be surprised by this. It should have been obvious to anyone observing the process, where appointed government bureaucrats and monopolistic companies were given more access to the text than elected officials and journalists, that this would be the result.”"
"Research with human subjects is generally governed by strict ethical standards, including the informed consent of the people who are studied. Facebook’s generic click-through agreement, which almost no one reads and which doesn’t mention this kind of experimentation, was the only form of consent cited in the paper. The subjects in the study still, to this day, have not been informed that they were in the study. If there had been federal funding, such a complacent notion of informed consent would probably have been considered a crime. Subjects would most likely have been screened so that those at special risk would be excluded or handled with extra care. This is only one early publication about a whole new frontier in the manipulation of people, and Facebook shouldn’t be singled out as a villain. All researchers, whether at universities or technology companies, need to focus more on the ethics of how we learn to improve our work. To promote the relevance of their study, the researchers noted that emotion was relevant to human health, and yet the study didn’t measure any potential health effects of the controlled manipulation of emotions."
