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The Future. BuzzFeed has quietly been using AI to generate travel articles that sound eerily similar. While BuzzFeed promises that it’s an experiment to see if non-writing staff can help AI produce content, it may be the first step to AI taking full responsibility for some of the less writing-intensive material the publisher is famous for.
Buzzy byline
AI has joined BuzzFeed’s editorial team.
- Futurism found that roughly 40 SEO-driven travel guides are credited to “Buzzy the Robot.”
- The articles note that they’re “collaboratively written” with a human employee.
When pressed, BuzzFeed said it was an “experiment” to see if AI could collate travel recommendations from non-editorial staff (like those in client partnerships or account management) and generate articles based on them.
Gateway writing
BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti said earlier this year that the publisher planned to experiment with AI but that it would be limited to a series of quizzes and that they would always be co-written with human writers.
The hope with the new experiment, according to a BuzzFeed spokesperson, is to find “new formats that allow anyone (with or without a formal background in writing or content creation) to contribute their ideas and unique perspectives on our site.”
In other words, “can we create professional writing without professional writers?” We’ll see what BuzzFeed concludes.
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