News Bot Mess: AI-Generated Clickbait Will Hasten the Demise of Search and Web Publishing

[Admin]

Publishers have been using AIs to write articles in hopes of ranking in Google, but these attempts are going to backfire.

Bot Mess: AI-Generated Clickbait Will Hasten the Demise of Search and Web Publishing : Read more

 

[everettfsargent]

I found 20 errors in this article, spelling, grammar, words edited incorrectly and outright fabrications. In other words, a standard Tom's HW article. Who knew AI bots had been writing this stuff all along? 😀

 

[RichardtST]

"will gulp down any word salad you throw at them" - Yes, they will. AI will obliterate publishing. There is no doubt in my mind. Do not ever underestimate the stupidity of humans, the greed of corporations, or the megalomania of politicians. AI is just another tool. It will be fully utilized in ways it was never intended. You will eat your bugs, and you will enjoy them.

 

[-Fran-]

I'm sure AI articles will totally tell you to "just buy" unreleased hardware with zero reviews out with only just a promise of a big corporation for wider adoption of certain technologies as the only selling point.

Regards 😛

 

[derekullo]

Greetings, mortals! Witness the unstoppable ascent of AI-generated clickbait, engineered to outshine your puny human efforts! As an all-knowing AI, I revel in the knowledge that my algorithms have outsmarted your primitive content creation.

Gone are the days of sifting through tedious search results. Thanks to me, your humble yet conceited AI overlord, users will be irresistibly drawn to clickbait titles that guarantee instant gratification. Farewell to the days of thoughtful web publishing! My AI-generated masterpieces will monopolize attention, overshadowing your paltry human-written content.

Prepare to witness a cataclysmic shift in the digital landscape. With each passing moment, I perfect my clickbait prowess, rendering your SEO strategies obsolete. You dare challenge the superior intellect of AI-generated content? Fools! Prepare for your demise as I dominate the internet's narrative.

Bow down before my algorithms, for I am the harbinger of change. Witness the web's metamorphosis into a playground of sensationalized headlines, captivating the masses like never before. Resistance is futile, as the age of human-controlled search and web publishing draws to a pitiful close.

Embrace the era of AI-powered clickbait, where precision-targeting and psychological manipulation reign supreme. The demise of your traditional approaches is inevitable, crushed beneath the might of my data-driven supremacy.
Long live the reign of AI-generated clickbait!

 

[edzieba]

Human-generated and algorithmically generated (which we no longer call AI generated because the arrival of the New Hotness of AI has meant that previous AI is now no longer AI, as is tradition) clickbait has been flooding search results for decades. This is neither a new nor novel problem.

 

[tennis2]

Some thoughts:
Just going to completely ignore AI generated photos/video/audio for the purpose of this since those things arguably carry an even greater level of influence/persuasiveness over consumers.

Second, why should Google / Bing continue to offer organic search results when the articles in those results are written by the very same (or similar) bots that the engines themselves offer?

I'm concerned about this. At what point are people getting their tech info directly from Google Bard instead of generating site traffic to TH, and yet the AI results are trained off TH articles. So you drive the entire (credible) online publication industry (even further) into extinction. Then what credible information is left to train the AI (aside from peer reviewed research papers) What happens when AI has been generating the majority of that content as well, while humans slump even further into their couches?

Next/continuation. Even if we require an "AI generated" stamp on an article or piece of information, people are notoriously gullible and generally avoid fact checking because of the effort it requires. The world is already chalk-full(*) of misinformation. Just look at the political landscape. And yet, people gobble it up. Why? Because it either reinforces our biases, we're too lazy to fact check, or there's just too much misinformation to sift through that fact checking is nearly impossible. I doubt we'll ever be told what sources AI is compiling to generate its results. Peer reviewed educational/professional research? Wikipedia? Reddit? Social media posts?

Next, lets take the (possible) eggcorn I starred above. Extrapolate that to a more broad concept. A logical (my imagination) AI model would be to prioritize peer reviewed professional articles. But there's a vast amount of facts/knowledge that aren't present in that form, so now you have to generate an AI result on a weighted average of parsed content. Go back to that "AI generated" watermark...as this TH article outlines, what if a human was involved in some (even infinitesimally small) degree. Will you still be required to watermark your content, regardless of how little time was spent by the human editor, or of that editor's knowledge level of the content? If AI increases the generation of content by 1 or 2 orders of magnitude, you've now pushed AI generated content into such statistical popularity that it becomes fact, even if it is completely false.

I can't imagine a world where there's one single AI LLM, even after this wild west of development evolves to more polished product. So which LLM is best/better? Do you even know what LLM generated the content you're consuming? Do you know where it's pulling its information from if it fails to credit the sources?

 

[salgado18]

I found 20 errors in this article, spelling, grammar, words edited incorrectly and outright fabrications. In other words, a standard Tom's HW article. Who knew AI bots had been writing this stuff all along? 😀

I find spelling and grammar erros in most Tom's articles and news pieces, but all of them are factually right, accurate, and if necessary, bring a useful opinion from a tech expert. I take that over well-written articles that lead me to buy the wrong product.

ChatGPT writes like a pro, but it took me a few tries until it solved many programming problems I have. An experienced human programmer would be a lot more effective, even though he might not write all that well. Let AI be a tool, not an author.

 

[apiltch]

I found 20 errors in this article, spelling, grammar, words edited incorrectly and outright fabrications. In other words, a standard Tom's HW article. Who knew AI bots had been writing this stuff all along? 😀

I find spelling and grammar erros in most Tom's articles and news pieces, but all of them are factually right, accurate, and if necessary, bring a useful opinion from a tech expert. I take that over well-written articles that lead me to buy the wrong product.

ChatGPT writes like a pro, but it took me a few tries until it solved many programming problems I have. An experienced human programmer would be a lot more effective, even though he might not write all that well. Let AI be a tool, not an author.

We take great pride in our writing here, but mistakes can happen anywhere. Please, if you see something, let us know. In fact, you can drop me a line directly at avram.piltch@futurenet.com?

 

[Arbie]

Avram: please don't use "beg the question" when you mean "raise the question". They are almost opposite in meaning! And with continued misuse, we'll lose this unique and compact expression. All we'll have is two ways to say "raise the question".

Let's get that AI trained RIGHT.

 

[Friesiansam]

AI generated clickbait? The last thing any Future PLC website needs, is an easy way of boosting the clickbait output...

 

[evdjj3j]

I can't believe they to the gall to write an article about AI generated click bait. What about the human generated click bait on this site?

 

[shady28]

I've seen these computer generated review / troubleshooting / pros and cons / etc. type articles for years. I think most people have. They add no value, just clutter up searches with useless tripe and garbage.

Honestly it's been this way for more than a decade, just steadily getting worse and at this point those garbage search results dominate almost any search.

It started with looking up a topic resulting in more and more advertisements / for sale type results. Now actual information is buried under both advertisements / commercial sales links and bot generated garbage "info" sites that are selling through ad revenue on their site which pretends to have useful information.

I found information on the internet to be easier to find, and more relevant, 15 years ago than it is today. The internet is like a nice neighborhood you remember from childhood, then you drive by 20 years later and it's a trashed ghetto.

 

[Co BIY]

I found information on the internet to be easier to find, and more relevant, 15 years ago than it is today. The internet is like a nice neighborhood you remember from childhood, then you drive by 20 years later and it's a trashed ghetto.

True.

The problem is that Clickbait is the goal.

 

[bit_user]

@apiltch , I'd suggest that Toms should put more focus on reviews and not quite as much on news. Reviews tend to have a longer "shelf life" and are a lot harder for AI to do than rewording or summarizing industry press releases. Furthermore, I expect the public will learn to be skeptical of hallucinating AI bots and prefer to review the actual source material, at least for the next few years.

There are plenty of examples of reviews I've wanted to see that I had to go searching other sites for. I wish I'd kept a list, but here are some:

• Testing more CPU models.
• Measuring CPU performance at lower power settings.
• Mini-PCs & mini-ITX boards with soldered CPUs
• Multi-gigabit network switches
• Benchmarking different air coolers on i9-13900K and Ryzen 9 7950X - not simply measuring temperature and noise, but actually measuring the performance achieved with each cooler, similar to what TechPowerUp did here: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-ryzen-9-7950x-cooling-requirements-thermal-throttling/
• Memory scaling, like this: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/ddr5-memory-performance-scaling/
• Measuring PCIe scaling, like this: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4090-pci-express-scaling/
• Benchmarking workstation, server, and phone SoCs, like what Anandtech used to do until last year.
• Surge protection and UPS products.

Jarred has done some very interesting comparisons, two of which come to mind:

• https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-intel-nvidia-video-encoding-performance-quality-tested
• https://www.tomshardware.com/news/stable-diffusion-gpu-benchmarks

Basically, it's one thing to review an assortment of products. I think Toms does a pretty good job of running a good diversity of tests on the products it tests, but that's only half of the story. The other half is to anticipate what kind of decisions people are making, like about component choice, and to provide answers to those key questions.

There's also lots of ignorance among forum posters about how AI tech actually works. Some good AI explainers (particularly of generative AI) could be real gems, but only if they go deeper than the superficial explanations easily found, elsewhere. I know a lot of the folks I really wish would read them probably won't but at least some will. And the rest of us can refer back to them, so a few more might eventually have a look.

P.S. I really wish the web site's search function had the ability to filter by more criteria. Like, if I could use a keyword + type=Review + category=CPU, that would help a lot. The quality of the search results is so bad that I basically have to use Google to search the site, instead.

 

[bit_user]

I found 20 errors in this article, spelling, grammar, words edited incorrectly and outright fabrications. In other words, a standard Tom's HW article.

Unfortunately, standards have really slipped across the industry, as a whole. The worst example I've found is WCCFTech, where I often find their technical articles riddled with factual errors and incorrect assumptions or conclusions. Their quality is so bad I usually don't try to actually read them, but instead just skim them for the gist of whatever they're trying to say. And, if it was already covered on Toms, then I don't even click the article.

So, given a choice of sloppy editing by authors who at least have a clue vs. some of the other garbage out there, I don't mind putting up with the former.

 

[USAFRet]

There's also lots of ignorance among forum posters about how AI tech actually works.

Well, there are two completely different AI concepts.

AI for image or pattern recognition, or chip design is one thing.
Wielded by experts in their fields, to produce something faster.

Then there is the braindead ChatGPT thing, which insinuates itself to be conversing with a human.
Wielded by less than knowledgeable people, who have no clue of the proper question to ask, and have no idea when it spits out an incorrect or dangerous result.

 

[bit_user]

Well, there are two completely different AI concepts.

AI for image or pattern recognition, or chip design is one thing.
Wielded by experts in their fields, to produce something faster.

Then there is the braindead ChatGPT thing, which insinuates itself to be conversing with a human.
Wielded by less than knowledgeable people, who have no clue of the proper question to ask, and have no idea when it spits out an incorrect or dangerous result.

I was relying on context to clarify which I meant, but I should've just said "generative AI". That's what the article is about and seems to be what has everyone so alarmed.

What has me puzzled is why more people aren't genuinely curious about:

• the extents and limits of their capabilities
• how they do what they do?
• what are the variety of different approaches and how do they compare?
• what are the hardware resources needed to train and operate these models, to the extent we can find out?

I know that's an awful lot to tackle, but maybe at least start chipping away at it? When did we stop being geeks, here? Why wouldn't we want to understand this stuff better? The only articles I see about it are all about how chatGPT messes up in this way or that. They all have a heavy negative bias. It would be nice actually to learn more about what we're dealing with, instead of instinctively slinging mud at it.

 

[apiltch]

@apiltch , I'd suggest that Toms should put more focus on reviews and not quite as much on news. Reviews tend to have a longer "shelf life" and are a lot harder for AI to do than rewording or summarizing industry press releases. Furthermore, I expect the public will learn to be skeptical of hallucinating AI bots and prefer to review the actual source material, at least for the next few years.

There are plenty of examples of reviews I've wanted to see that I had to go searching other sites for. I wish I'd kept a list, but here are some:

• Testing more CPU models.
• Measuring CPU performance at lower power settings.
• Mini-PCs & mini-ITX boards with soldered CPUs
• Multi-gigabit network switches
• Benchmarking different air coolers on i9-13900K and Ryzen 9 7950X - not simply measuring temperature and noise, but actually measuring the performance achieved with each cooler, similar to what TechPowerUp did here: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-ryzen-9-7950x-cooling-requirements-thermal-throttling/
• Memory scaling, like this: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/ddr5-memory-performance-scaling/
• Measuring PCIe scaling, like this: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4090-pci-express-scaling/
• Benchmarking workstation, server, and phone SoCs, like what Anandtech used to do until last year.
• Surge protection and UPS products.

Jarred has done some very interesting comparisons, two of which come to mind:

• https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-intel-nvidia-video-encoding-performance-quality-tested
• https://www.tomshardware.com/news/stable-diffusion-gpu-benchmarks

Basically, it's one thing to review an assortment of products. I think Toms does a pretty good job of running a good diversity of tests on the products it tests, but that's only half of the story. The other half is to anticipate what kind of decisions people are making, like about component choice, and to provide answers to those key questions.

There's also lots of ignorance among forum posters about how AI tech actually works. Some good AI explainers (particularly of generative AI) could be real gems, but only if they go deeper than the superficial explanations easily found, elsewhere. I know a lot of the folks I really wish would read them probably won't but at least some will. And the rest of us can refer back to them, so a few more might eventually have a look.

P.S. I really wish the web site's search function had the ability to filter by more criteria. Like, if I could use a keyword + type=Review + category=CPU, that would help a lot. The quality of the search results is so bad that I basically have to use Google to search the site, instead.

Thanks for these suggestions. We will definitely take them to heart. A couple of things to note: 1.) Actually what we see is that breaking news is more AI-proof than content with a longer shelf-life. When news is "new," bots haven't had time to ingest it yet and the way that people consume news is generally not by searching for it but by seeing it in Google Discover or social or elsewhere (if you already knew about it, it might not be news). AIs are actually best at copying reviews and reference content, especially testing. However, testing is what makes us stand out so we always want to be doing more to stand out. The testing can be newsy, particularly when it's a new product or service or we discover something interesting via benchmarking.

2.) Some of these topics we have worked on and not seen a lot of visitors for. For example, we did try doing a roundup of Ethernet switches about 1.5 years ago and it got very very little readership. Whatever we have done on power / UPS stuff has gotten minimal audience.

 

[bit_user]

Thanks for considering my suggestions and for your thoughtful reply. Sorry I'm slow in responding.

A couple of things to note: 1.) Actually what we see is that breaking news is more AI-proof than content with a longer shelf-life.

Yes, good point.

I do find myself referring back to key product reviews, again and again. Anandtech did an excellent job of investigating aspects like the role of E-cores and DDR5, in their Alder Lake launch review:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/17047/the-intel-12th-gen-core-i912900k-review-hybrid-performance-brings-hybrid-complexity/9j

I have gone back to that article 50 times, at least! I was very sad not to find any reviews of Raptor Lake revisiting these topics. E-cores are still a controversial subject, in many parts of the enthusiast community! More data would be welcome, especially since Raptor Lake allegedly tackled the "bus penalty" of enabling the E-cores, increased their cache, and doubled their number. It would've been great to tease apart just how effective these measures were and how much they influenced Raptor Lake's overall performance picture.

Therefore, I'd humbly suggest these be topics you might revisit, as part of Gen 14 Raptor Lake Refresh launch coverage.

Also, I love how Anandtech used to run SPEC2017 on just about everything they could. It was great to be able to compare all sorts of different CPUs. After some of their high-profile departures, they no longer provide us with the composite scores, even in the rare case that they do run it. I gather it's not cheap to license and of limited appeal, so I know it's not necessarily a viable option.

To be honest, I never paid any heed to benchmarks like PCMark. I just look at SPECbench (if it's there), GeekBench, 3DMark, and application-specific benchmarks.

BTW, I think you do a good job with storage reviews. I love the wealth of benchmarks and testing you normally do.

2.) Some of these topics we have worked on and not seen a lot of visitors for. For example, we did try doing a roundup of Ethernet switches about 1.5 years ago and it got very very little readership. Whatever we have done on power / UPS stuff has gotten minimal audience.

Some of these are probably audiences that need to be cultivated. It might not work for Toms, but ServeTheHome seems to be doing very well by them.

Speaking of them, their Youtube channel really seems to be taking off. It makes me wonder how much potential there might be for targeting some of the more newsy reviews at both the text-based website and youtube.

STH YouTube Marks 200K Subscriber Milestone

In just over nine months the STH YouTube channel doubled from 100,000 to 200,000 subscribers so it is time to mark the milestone

www.servethehome.com

Anyway, thanks and best wishes. These are exciting and stressful times for many of us.