Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Artificial intelligence or AI should be able to help ease human work. However, Microsoft’s AI actually spread hoax news and even mocked people who died.
One of them, AI made by Microsoft made a false claim that United States President Joe Biden fell asleep during a moment of silence for the victims of forest fires in Maui, Hawaii.
In addition, a conspiracy theory has emerged that the latest spike in Covid-19 cases was orchestrated by the Democratic Party ahead of the election. Meanwhile, the obituaries of late NBA players were written by AI as “useless.”
Microsoft’s portal, also known as MSN.com and Microsoft Start, remains one of the most visited websites in the world and a place where millions of Americans read their news every day.
According to people who know how the site works, Microsoft’s decision to rely more on AI rather than human editors to manage the portal’s homepage is thought to be the cause of the increase in hoaxes and strange news on the site.
The site, including Microsoft’s latest “Edge” browser, the successor to the company’s Internet Explorer browser, employed more than 800 editors in 2018 to help select and curate stories.
But in recent years Microsoft has fired editors, some of whom were told they would be replaced by “automation” known as AI.
Quoting from CNNMicrosoft’s initial investment in OpenAI, creator of the ChatGPT app, has placed Microsoft at the forefront of a promising but also potentially dangerous AI revolution.
AI’s apparent role in Microsoft’s recent expansion of fake news raises questions about the company’s public adoption of this new technology and the journalism industry as a whole.
Damaged media reputation
Concerns regarding Microsoft’s use of AI in its news content peaked when British newspapers The Guardian accused Microsoft of damaging the newspaper’s reputation after publishing articles from them on its site.
To support its highly trafficked news portal, Microsoft has entered into licensing agreements with major news organizations around the world, including The Guardian And CNN, which allows Microsoft to republish their articles in exchange for a share of advertising revenue.
 Photo: NurPhoto via Getty Images/NurPhoto |
Last week, The Guardian published an article about Lilie James, a 21-year-old woman who was found dead with serious head injuries at a school in Sydney, Australia.
James’ murder caused grief and sparked a national conversation in Australia about violence against women.
However, when MSN republished the news The Guardian, MSN accompanied an AI-generated poll asking readers, “What do you think was the reason behind the woman’s death?” And there are three options listed: murder, accident, or suicide.
The poll sparked criticism from Microsoft readers, “This has to be the most depressing and disgusting poll I’ve ever seen,” one person wrote.
Anna Bateson, chief executive of Guardian Media Group, said in a letter to Microsoft obtained CNNthat automatically generated polls are a particularly concerning application of the company’s AI technology and demand that Microsoft take full responsibility.
A Microsoft spokesperson said it disabled all polls on news articles and said the company was investigating the cause of the inappropriate content.
“Polls should not appear alongside articles like this, and we are taking steps to help prevent mistakes like this from happening again in the future.” he said.
Full of fake news
But this ominous poll is not the first public error caused by Microsoft’s use of AI.
In August, MSN featured a story on its website that falsely claimed that President Joe Biden had fallen asleep during a moment of silence for victims of the Maui wildfire disaster.
 Photo: NurPhoto via Getty Images/NurPhoto |
The following month, Microsoft republished a story about Brandon Hunter, the former NBA player who died unexpectedly at age 42, with the headline, “Brandon Hunter is useless at 42.”
Then, in October, Microsoft republished an article claiming that San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston had resigned from his post following criticism from Elon Musk.
Some of the articles featured by Microsoft were originally published by non-credible websites amidst the amount of online misinformation circulating every day.
However, Microsoft’s decision to republish articles from non-credible news outlets has amplified those stories to millions of additional readers, bolstering their claims.
An editor who previously worked for Microsoft told CNN that this kind of fake story, or almost any other article from a low-quality website, would not be displayed by Microsoft if not for the use of AI.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
Next Article
Is it true that AI technology makes students lazy? Read the explanation
(dem/dem)