this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2026
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Maybe they should do more than just fire a person who was caught using AI. Maybe they should establish a process of independent fact checking before publication, regardless of whether AI was known or intended to be used to produce the article. It is a problem that AI was used in a way that introduced factual errors. It's fair that the person responsible for this was fired. But all processes need quality control. Why hasn't the person who failed to wrap quality control processes around the author fired?
in what world would independent fact checking down to the level of individual quotes be feasible for an online magazine? you can't be serious.
That used to be the standard...
Key is, used to be. Ars Technica is one of the best such magazines out there, but even their margins have to be razor thin. To stay at the top of Google search results you have to update super frequently. (Source: this Metafilter post: https://www.metafilter.com/212411/Ars-Technica-Pulls-AI-Article-With-AI-Fabricated-Quotes#8819559)
I highly doubt that. how would that even work? a third-party to the publisher would have to check every statement before the issue goes to print. I can't imagine this happening for anything that is not research papers or official reports.
but I happy to learn something new.
This can and should be done internally. Why would it need to be a third party? Any publisher that cares about their reputation anyway. Fact-checkers are a real thing. They routinely follow up on interviews to make sure authors aren't bullshitting.
of course, but the OP said independent
That's part of the cost of AI that the AI companies leave to their customers. There is a tradeoff and we know from a long history of for-profit corporate behaviour that they will generally prefer lower short term cost, despite consequent risk and harm. But if the companies that sell AI services don't take care to ensure the outputs are true and the companies that use AI don't take care then that leaves the ultimate customer/consumer to fact check everything. That or simply be oblivious or stop trusting anything. The problem is made worse by the fact that most companies won't disclose their use of AI, because of the adverse impact on their reputation, unless they are compelled to do so. So far, I don't see any legislation to compel disclosure.