mostvexingparse

joined 3 years ago
 

I didn't find any English articles about this, so here's a summary what happened:

  • Mario Voigt, the minister-president (head of a German state government) of Thuringia, published an op-ed in the German conservative newspaper "Welt", that sounded suspiciously like AI slop, so journalists started investigating
  • They found out that the Welt op-ed, another op-ed in "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" (FAZ) and several speeches he gave (including a speech for a Holocaust memorial) were completely AI generated
  • The FAZ op-ed contained quotes of three scientists that were completely made up. After Voigt was confronted by the newspaper, his office just replied with "AI is the future" bullshit instead of answering the questions, so the newspaper withdrew the op-ed and published a statement (also only in German: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien-und-film/medienpolitik/zum-ki-verdacht-bei-gastbeitrag-von-mario-voigt-200917046.html)

In the aftermath, some people looked closer at the speeches and texts of other politicians and journalists:

 

A software developer added some anti AI measures to his Java library and the slopcoders are not amused

"we stole so many books for training that our bullhshit generator regurgitates common scifi trropes"

[โ€“] mostvexingparse@lemmy.world 47 points 1 month ago (1 children)

just like the softdrink company that changed their name to "long blockchain iced tea" a couple of years ago, their shares soared 300% before tanking completely

gawd, i hope this bubble pops soon