These plagiarized articles are being used to generate advertising revenue from major brands, with programmatic ads from 55 blue-chip companies found running on 15 of the 37 sites analyzed. The AI models used to create these plagiarized works can be easily accomplished using popular tools available from Google and OpenAI. Both OpenAI and Google have policies prohibiting users from using their models to engage in plagiarism, but these policies currently seem like mere suggestions. The New York Times has altered its Terms of Service policies to explicitly forbid companies from using its archives to train machine learning or artificial intelligence systems.
Key takeaways:
- Online content farms are using AI chatbots to rewrite and republish news stories from major publications, earning advertising revenue in the process, according to NewsGuard.
- The report identified 37 sites repurposing news stories, but the actual number could be much higher as many sites may not show common chatbot error messages.
- These plagiarized articles are being used to generate advertising revenue from major brands, many of which may not be aware they are funding these AI copycat sites.
- Traditional news publishers are grappling with the impact of AI on newsrooms, with some using AI tools to generate articles and brainstorm story ideas, while others are pushing back against AI companies.