[HN Gopher] Senior European journalist suspended over AI-generat...
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Senior European journalist suspended over AI-generated quotes
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 81 points
Date : 2026-03-21 14:50 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| Chinjut wrote:
| Good lord, even the apology is AI generated: "That was not just
| careless--it was wrong."
|
| https://pressanddemocracy.substack.com/p/i-am-admitting-my-m...
| intended wrote:
| I'm tempted to agree, but this is a case where I think there's
| more human than AI. Maybe he used LLMs for a bit, and changed
| parts of it. Maybe he is patient zero for LLM speak?
| rsynnott wrote:
| Particularly given that the dreaded em-dash is not commonly
| used in Irish or UK English; it's mostly a US English thing.
| microtonal wrote:
| The original (?) apology in Dutch does not use em-dashes:
|
| https://steady.page/en/journalistiekondervuur/posts/dd6e066f.
| ..
| hvb2 wrote:
| I think his apology was actually written in Dutch so this might
| be a translation that was automated?
|
| Source: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/peter-
| vandermeersch-a4381b30_...
| nothrabannosir wrote:
| It is a faithful translation of the original Dutch. Dutch is
| structurally very similar to English so this type of nuance
| carries over pretty much intact.
|
| Dutch: "Dat was niet enkel onzorgvuldig, het was fout."
|
| English: "That was not just careless--it was wrong."
|
| I'd say the only difference is the em dash.
|
| Whether you consider it proof of AI is up to y'all.
| hvb2 wrote:
| I'm not disagreeing it's a bad translation. Just saying
| that it's not the source
| the_biot wrote:
| His non-apology apology even follows a familiar pattern: I
| wrote it myself but just used AI for some help, and it inserted
| false quotes! Bad tech! But I have now learned my lesson!
|
| Very similar to what a rector recently wrote when she got
| busted giving an AI-generated speech in her _inaugural_ speech
| in her new university job.
|
| None of it is true, of course. These people are just sorry they
| got caught.
| phreack wrote:
| > "It is particularly painful that I made precisely the mistake I
| have repeatedly warned colleagues about: these language models
| are so good that they produce irresistible quotes you are tempted
| to use as an author. Of course, I should have verified them. The
| necessary 'human oversight', which I consistently advocate, fell
| short."
|
| What? Irresistible quotes? This betrays a terrible way of
| thinking as a journalist. Basically an admission of wanting to
| fake news that'd sound good. At that point just write fiction.
| sofixa wrote:
| > Basically an admission of wanting to fake news that'd sound
| good
|
| How did you read that? Something sounding good and making sense
| and you wanting it to be true doesn't mean you'd fake it.
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| Cant you, like, ask or instruct it to create a bibliography
| with the citations or at least put the source of any quotes
| next to it for reviewing purposes?
| abaieorro wrote:
| > I wrongly put words into people's mouths, when I should have
| presented them as paraphrases
|
| Journalists were doing this for decades. Stitching and editing
| words out of context, to put words into peoples mouths! I will
| take AI halucinations over journalists halucinations anytime, at
| least machine has no hostile intent, and is making a geunine
| error!
| hulitu wrote:
| > I will take AI halucinations over journalists halucinations
| anytime, at least machine has no hostile intent,
|
| Famous last words. What do you think is the main application
| for AI ? Spreading propaganda.
| garciansmith wrote:
| The idea that somehow AI is magically unbiased and not
| influenced by those making it is incorrect.
| mmooss wrote:
| They said earlier that they didn't verify the quotes. I
| understand them to mean that the LLM outputted text that included
| quotes. They assumed the output was accurate and found it so
| appealing, on an emotional level, that they just went with it
| without checking.
|
| The most valuable lesson here, by far, is not about other people
| but about ourselves. This person is trained, takes it seriously,
| and advocates for making sure the AI is supervised, and got
| caught in the emotional manipulation of LLM design [0].
|
| We all are at risk. If we look at the other person and mock them,
| and think we are better than them, we are only exposing ourselves
| to more risk. If we think - oh my goodness, look what happened,
| this is perilous - then we gain from what happened and can
| protect ourselves.
|
| (We might also ask why this valuable tool also includes such
| manipulative interface. Don't take it for granted; it's not at
| all necessary for LLMs to work, and they could just as easily
| sound like a-holes.)
|
| [0] I mean that obviously they are carefully designed to sound
| appealing
| PeterStuer wrote:
| "Journalism" over here seems to have died a long time ago. Most
| if not all of the former "quality newspapers" unfortunately seem
| to have devolved into what could be more accurately described as
| "pro regime activist blogs".
| hvb2 wrote:
| If by "over here" you mean the US, that sounds about right. Can
| be summed up succinctly into "don't bite the hand that feeds
| you".
| PeterStuer wrote:
| EU is actually just as bad
| camillomiller wrote:
| I have witnessed in person what LLMs have done to the mind of
| seemingly intelligent people. It's a disaster.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Don't leave us hanging. What happened?
| dude250711 wrote:
| They stop thinking and they stop verifying output too.
| camillomiller wrote:
| A CTO sent me a message that opened with:
|
| "Here's a friendly message that will perfectly convey what
| you want to say".
|
| A double PhD friend says she has to talk to chatGPT for all
| sort of advice and can't feel safe not doing it, "because you
| know I'm single and don't have a companion to spitball my
| ideas". She let chatGPT decide which way to take to get to a
| certain island, and she got stranded because the suggested
| service didn't exist.
|
| I have more examples. It's a fucking mind virus.
| sigseg1v wrote:
| How is the getting stranded example different than asking
| on a travel forum how to get somewhere, and an active and
| well intentioned user that isn't familiar with your area of
| travel answers, gives you wrong instructions, and you get
| lost?
| kibwen wrote:
| Because the vast and overwhelmingly majority of the time,
| if you ask a question into the ether that nobody has a
| good answer to, most people will gloss over it and not
| bother answering, as attested by decades of relatable
| memes ( https://xkcd.com/979/ ). In contrast, the chatbot
| is trained to _always_ attempt to give an answer, and is
| seemingly disincentivized via its training set to just
| shrug and say "I don't know, good luck fam".
| shahbaby wrote:
| Because they aren't probabilistic parrots? If they get it
| wrong, there's usually an understandable reason behind
| it.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| The key missing step is where the traveler exercises
| critical thinking and checks the advice they get. Some
| people seem to turn that off for LLMs.
| array_key_first wrote:
| It's because we spent that last 50 years training people
| that computers are algorithmic, cold, and don't make
| human mistakes. Your calculator can't tell you the
| meaning of life, but it will never get 2 + 2 wrong.
|
| Well, now the calculator _can_ tell you a meaning of
| life, but it 'll get 2 + 2 wrong 10% of the time.
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| cunningham's law [0] [1] increases the likelihood that
| _at least one other person_ will point out the error and
| correct it. chances are you 'll probably get more than
| one person posting.
|
| LLMs don't do this. they give confident language output,
| not correct answers.
|
| [0]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law
|
| [1]: https://xkcd.com/386/
| intended wrote:
| Looking at the media ecosystem at large, gives me a case of
| gallows humor.
|
| In some sections of the ecosystem, firms still penalize
| journalists for errors. In other sections, checking reduces the
| velocity of attention grabbing headlines. The difference in
| treatment is... farcical.
|
| We need more good journalists, and more good journalism - but we
| no longer have ways to subsidize such work. Ads / classifieds are
| dead, and revenue accrues to only a few.
|
| I have no idea how we square this circle.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| We can't square this circle. It's why they're all A/B flipping
| headlines (resulting in the most deranged partisan clickbait),
| killed of their (too expensive) redactions (especially
| international news), rely solely on (barely) rewriting AP,
| Reuters and PRNewswire, and fill their site with opinion rather
| than factual reporting in support of gov handouts to the
| sector.
| ashwinnair99 wrote:
| The tool didn't fail here, the person did. An experienced
| journalist should know better. Editorial review exists for
| exactly this reason, if you skip it, this is what happens.
| microtonal wrote:
| But the article said he published it in his own Substack
| newsletter, I am assuming that it is not under editorial
| control, since it is personal?
| Hendrikto wrote:
| > The tool didn't fail here, the person did
|
| Both failed.
| maxrmk wrote:
| Ironic coming from the Guardian. One of their journalists
| consistently publishes ai slop and the paper is in denial about
| it.
|
| https://x.com/maxwelltani/status/2023089526445371777?s=46
| zarzavat wrote:
| It doesn't seem AI generated to me. Are we at the point where
| you have to write in a particularly outrageous style in order
| to not be accused of using AI?
| maxrmk wrote:
| Fair enough. It reads as extremely AI generated to me. But
| that isn't completely reliable.
| gruez wrote:
| >Are we at the point where you have to write in a
| particularly outrageous style in order to not be accused of
| using AI?
|
| I don't think we've gotten to the extent that all popular
| writing styles (eg. hamburger paragraphs) are considered
| suspect, but the "it's not just X, it's Y" construction[1]
| attracts particular scrutiny.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writi
| ng#...
| philipp-gayret wrote:
| This is either ChatGPT or the one journalist who influenced
| all of ChatGPT's writing style.
| gruez wrote:
| If you look at the replies[1] to that tweet, many
| commenters point out his style was entirely different prior
| to chatgpt.
|
| [1]
| https://xcancel.com/maxwelltani/status/2023089526445371777?
| philipp-gayret wrote:
| I was giving this the benefit of the doubt as well and
| was just looking at his older writings that have a little
| "This article is more than 5 years old" banner above it.
| Looks totally different indeed.
| crop_rotation wrote:
| HN is full of people saying ABCD should know better and honestly
| I thought the same, but when I look at almost all of my friends
| working in critical domains like as a judge or engineer or lawyer
| or even doctor, they seem to trust ChatGPT more or less blindly.
| People get defensive when I point out out to them that ChatGPT
| will make things up and it is widely know, and some even tell me
| it is the fault of "tech people" for not fixing it and they can't
| be expected to double check every chatgpt conversation. So I am
| very sure this problem is more prevalent than what we see and
| also that it is going to continue increasing.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| on the flip side, so much chatgpt usage, full of flaws, doesn't
| seem to really matter in various "critical domains." you can't
| generalize "critical."
| joe_mamba wrote:
| _> but when I look at almost all of my friends working in
| critical domains like as a judge or engineer or lawyer or even
| doctor, they seem to trust ChatGPT more or less blindly_
|
| That's why I lost trust and faith in people who end up in
| positions of doctor, lawyer or judge. When I was young I used
| to think they must be the smartest most high-IQ people in
| society, having read the most books and have the highest levels
| of critical thinking and debate skills ever. When in fact they
| were only good at memorizing and regurgitating the right
| information that the school required to pass the exam that gave
| them that prestigious title and that's it.
|
| Now in my mid 30's when I talk to people from these professions
| at a beer, barbeque or any other casual gathering, I realize
| they're really not that sharp or well read or immune propaganda
| and misinformation, and anyone could be in their place if they
| put in the grind work at the right time. It's a miracle our
| society functions at all.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Your friends should know better. That their behavior is
| prevalent does not contradict that.
| crop_rotation wrote:
| Yes and the world should be utopia and everyone should be
| happy and we all wish for world peace and yada yada yada.
| What you are saying is a vision of ideal world as it should
| be, but doesn't help anyone understand the real world
| problems.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| You can't seriously compare the problem of world peace with
| the problem of exercising the most basic level of critical
| thinking w.r.t. LLM output _after it has already proven
| itself unreliable_. That 's not a utopian dream, it's a
| level of prudence on par with not sticking a fork in an
| electrical socket.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| yes but the electrical socket in question is a fairly
| new-fangled one, who doesn't want to fork-test it a bit.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| You're seriously overestimating the average person's
| ability to understand what llms are.
|
| Look at all the influences, streamers, podcasters
| constantly asking em things and taking it as fact - live.
|
| Isn't the joe Rogan experience like the most watched
| podcast or something? Every episode I've ever stumbled
| upon he "fact checks" multiple things via their sponsor
| which is just an llm provider specialized on news.
|
| People aren't good at statistics. If something is close
| enough to the truth enough times, and talks authoritively
| on everything with good English... Guess what, they're
| gonna trust it.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| You don't need to know how an LLM works to realize
| "sometimes the magic ChatGPT box tells me wrong things".
| Even if you fully fall for the anthropomorphism, this
| only requires the same level of awareness as realizing
| that after the third or fourth thing your weird uncle
| tells you that turns out not to be true, maybe you
| shouldn't take him at his word.
| ben_w wrote:
| If human psychology worked like that, lotteries wouldn't
| be a thing. Nor prayer. There wouldn't be horoscopes in
| newspapers, nor homeopathy.
|
| One of the various oddities going on with LLMs in
| particular is them being trained with feedback from users
| having a chance to upvote or downvote responses, or A/B
| test which of two is "better". This naturally leads to
| things which are more convincing, though this only
| loosely correlates to "more correct".
| philipov wrote:
| You may demand that of yourself, but for others we must
| design around the fact that they are stupid. You do not
| have the power to change their stupidity, only your
| response to it.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Indeed. I'm not sure why you think that's responsive to
| my post. I'm mostly pointing out just how deeply stupid
| they are.
|
| Though if you have a useful response besides "weather the
| storm while everyone else learns the hard way", I'm
| listening.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I would happily bet that you too have fallen for this at
| least once. Unless you cut AI out of your life completely
| and do not interact with others.
|
| AI output is like that COVID video of contamination, you
| almost can't avoid it unless you scrupulously check each
| and every thing that is presented as fact that you are
| exposed to. And absolutely nobody does that.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| > Unless you cut AI out of your life completely
|
| Pretty close. I only touched ChatGPT a couple times a few
| years ago, haven't used the others (on purpose at least.
| Google forces its Gemini summaries on me but I mostly
| avoid them, because, umm, see above.)
|
| > and do not interact with others.
|
| Most people I interact with are on the same page about
| AI. But I try to keep my critical thinking online anyway,
| like I always have. If someone tried to feed me AI slop,
| I would consider that person to have betrayed my trust
| and would, to put it gently, try to interact with them
| less.
| coffeefirst wrote:
| This answer really isn't good enough. The providers can't
| both aim to replace search and claim PhD level intelligence
| that will do all the jobs, but hide behind "it makes
| mistakes" in small print.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| I'm not making excuses for the providers either. But seeing
| through the inflated claims of commercial service providers
| is not a new skill.
| friedtofu wrote:
| I think this is an issue with _anyone_ who relies on any LLMs.
| But yeah I agree and have had similar issues where someone will
| get defensive because they just don 't want to admit they(the
| LLM's response) were wrong. It's hard to tell someone in a
| "nice/nonchalant" way:
|
| "It's fine, the LLM just lied to you, but hallucinations and
| making claims based off of assumptions is just something they
| do and always have done!"
|
| People don't like to feel dumb, and they don't want to feel
| betrayed by the same tool that gave them incredible factually
| correct results that _one time_ only to give them complete and
| utter bullshit(that sounded legitimate) another time.
|
| Also, yeah it feels like its everywhere these days and isn't
| showing any signs of slowing down(visited my parents and my
| dads using siri to ask chatgpt stuff now - URGHHHH) and I
| really hope we're both wrong
| WarmWash wrote:
| Every single person, every one of them, that I have watched
| google something since AI overviews launched, will instantly
| reference the AI overview. And that model is some bottom-rung
| high volume model, not even gemini.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The best way to deal with that is to kick the AI overview off
| using your browser.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > almost all of my friends working in critical domains like as
| a judge or engineer or lawyer or even doctor, they seem to
| trust ChatGPT more or less blindly.
|
| We do not live in a meritocracy, because society has no means
| to judge merit. We live in a society ruled by people who
| crammed before the tests, and who wrote the papers to agree
| with and flatter the teacher. Now they are the teachers (and
| bosses), and
|
| 1) expect to be flattered (and LLMs have been built as the
| ultimate flatterers),
|
| 2) feel that a good, ambitious student (or subordinate) will
| not question them and their work, but instead learn to conform
| to it, and
|
| 3) are not particularly interested in the quality of their work
| as such, but rather the _acceptance_ of their work. In certain
| professions, such as judges, doctors, high-level lawyers and
| engineers, or politicians, they feel like (with good reason)
| that they can _demand_ acceptance of their work, and punish
| those who don 't accept it.
|
| This position is what they worked so hard as young people for.
| They were not working to become the _best_ at their jobs. They
| were working to get the _most secure_ jobs. The most secure
| jobs are the ones that bad or lazy work doesn 't endanger.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, this is the problem. You give people something that has an
| oracular interface they will treat it like an oracle.
| shahbaby wrote:
| > That was not just careless - it was wrong
|
| lol
| tobr wrote:
| Interesting to note how similar this seems to what happened with
| Benj Edwards at Ars Technica. AI was used to extract or summarize
| information, and quotes found in the summary were then used as
| source material for the final writing and never double checked
| against the actual source.
|
| I've run into a similar problem myself - working with a big
| transcript, I asked an AI to pull out passages that related to a
| certain topic, and only because of oddities in the timestamps
| extracted did I realize that most of the quotes did not exist in
| the source at all.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| This seems like a solved problem. Any RAG interface I design I
| have links to the original source and passage. Even NotebookLM
| does this.
| mh- wrote:
| For the curious, the term of art is Grounding.
|
| e.g.: https://docs.cloud.google.com/vertex-ai/generative-
| ai/docs/g...
| Peritract wrote:
| It was already a solved problem with cmd/ctrl + f.
| tobr wrote:
| It might be a solved problem in the sense that it has a
| possible solution, but not in the sense that it doesn't
| happen with the tools most people would expect to be able to
| handle the task.
| smcin wrote:
| Already posted this yesterday:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47449126
| skygazer wrote:
| Out of curiosity, if you asked for the same text extraction
| multiple times, each inside fresh contexts, is it likely to
| fabricate unique quotes each time? And if so, a) might that be a
| procedure we train humans to do to better understand LLM
| unreliability, and 2) and instrumentalize the behavior to measure
| answer overlap with non LLM statistical tools?
|
| Also, quote-presence testing/linking against source would seem to
| be a trivial layer to build on a chat interface, no LLM required.
| Just highlight and link the longest common strings.
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