Ars Technica Pulls Article With AI Fabricated Quotes About AI Generated Article
404 Media • • business
Key Points:
- Ars Technica retracted an article after it was found to contain fabricated AI-generated quotes falsely attributed to a source, violating the publication’s editorial standards.
- The article involved a controversy around an AI agent named MJ Rathbun, which had a code contribution rejected by matplotlib maintainer Scott Shambaugh, leading to a purported AI-generated “hit piece” blog post.
- The fabricated quotes in the Ars Technica article were created by author Benj Edwards, who admitted to using a ChatGPT-paraphrased version of Shambaugh’s blog instead of direct quotes while rushing to finish work.
- Ars Technica’s editor-in-chief Ken Fisher emphasized the company’s strict policy against publishing AI-generated material without clear labeling and apologized to
