Tag Archives: AI-generated articles

AI and the weirder aspects of the Bayeux Tapestry: it’s the news from Britain

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Let’s start today’s post in Chicago, which you may already know is not in Britain, but it’ll all make sense if you stay with me a while. 

In May, the Chicago Sun-Times ran a summer reading list, as newspapers do when summer threatens and they need some fluff to fill their column inches. I don’t know if they have any book reviewers left on staff, or if they ever had them, but they farmed the work out to a freelancer, who farmed it out to AI, because why would a responsible newspaper hire someone who actually reads books to write about books?

It might be relevant that the paper cut its staff by 20% recently. Or to put that less delicately, fired 20% of its staff. 

The article that the freelancer turned in and the paper printed recommended six imaginary books, although to be fair they were credited to real writers. It even had synopses for them, and reasons people might like them. 

Irrelevant photo: poppies

The article included a few real books, also by real writers, but nobody’s perfect. 

The Sun-Times said, “We’re looking into how this made it into print as we speak. It is not editorial content and was not created by, or approved by, the Sun-Times newsroom.”

Which makes it sound a bit like some AI-generated copy stormed the newsroom and locked the reporters in closets so it could put itself into print. 

It might be worth adding, in this context, that a summer supplement quoted a food anthropologist who also doesn’t seem to exist. 

And the connection to Britain? We’ve been told that artificial intelligence is going to play a greater role in British military procurement.

What could possibly go wrong?

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I was going to leave it there, but I can’t resist an AI-gone-wrong story. Britain’s high court is less than happy about dozens of false citations and quotes from case law being relied on in court–presumably generated by AI. An £89 million damages case had 18 of phantom citations and I have no idea how many phantom quotes, so it seems fair to guess that these aren’t all being generated by your street-corner mom-and-pop law firm.

 

How to tell if you’re in Britain

I mentioned that Chicago isn’t in Britain, and I stand by that statement, but if you ever find yourself in a strange city–or town, for that matter–and need to know if it’s in Britain, the simplest way is to head for someplace that serves food and ask for tea, or better yet, builder’s tea. If you get a funny look, you’re not in Britain. If no one thinks that’s odd, you are. If they tell you they don’t serve tea but get all apologetic about it–yeah, that’s Britain.

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You could also look for the nearest mass-participation race. If some of the runners are dressed up as anything other than runners, that’s another sign you’re in Britain, although admittedly not as useful a test since races aren’t happening all the time on every corner. Still, an article about April’s London Marathon mentioned runners dressed as Sherlock Holmes, a chicken, Spiderman, the Elizabeth Tower (that’s the tower that houses Big Ben, which is a clock), and a rhino.

The rhino gets special mention, because the runner inside the costume broke a Guinness world record for the most marathons completed in a 3D costume: this was his 113th dressed as a pachyderm. 

Listen, fame is fleeting. You have to grab any chance you get. 

 

How clear is biological sex?

Back in May (remember May?), Britain’s Supreme Court ruled that the words sex, woman, and man in the 2010 Equality Act refer to biological sex. You know: XX or XY. Vagina or penis. Pink baby clothes or blue. 100% pay or 87% pay. Any idiot can tell the difference and as of now everybody has to go to the corner–not to mention the toilet–assigned to them at birth. 

It all sounds simple until you talk to someone who actually knows about this stuff. I’m not going to do even a shallow dive into it here but a Scientific American article does a great job of exploring the complicated reality behind what’s supposed to be simple. 

 Among other things, it says, “Sex can be much more complicated than it at first seems. According to the simple scenario, the presence or absence of a Y chromosome is what counts: with it, you are male, and without it, you are female. But doctors have long known that some people straddle the boundary—their sex chromosomes say one thing, but their gonads (ovaries or testes) or sexual anatomy say another. . . .

“When genetics is taken into consideration, the boundary between the sexes becomes even blurrier. Scientists have . . . uncovered variations in . . .  genes that have subtle effects on a person’s anatomical or physiological sex. . . .

“These discoveries do not sit well in a world in which sex is still defined in binary terms.”

And that’s just the part I happened to grab on my way out the door. It really is worth a read. 

If determining a person’s sex was as simple as the Supreme Court seems to think–

Listen, I don’t know how to put this delicately, but people studying the Bayeux Tapestry–that massive history-of-the-Norman-Conquest in pictures–are debating whether it includes 93 penises or 94. 

If that strikes you as an awful lot of genitalia stitched into a single tapestry, even a massive one, I should mention that 88 of them are on horses. That may or may not normalize the situation.

Why are the experts unsure? Surely, even with the boundaries between the sexes blurring, a penis is still a penis.

Well, in real life, to the best of my knowledge–and I’ll admit to not being an expert on the subject–it probably still is, but this is art, not life, and art is notoriously messy. Some experts say the object in question could be the scabbard for a sword or dagger. 

As Fats Waller said, “One never knows, do one?” Although I’m pretty sure he was talking about almost anything else. 

The Supreme Court has not seen fit to rule on this. Yet. But the debate has led to wonderful quotes, including one to rival Fats Waller’s: “I counted the penises in the Bayeux Tapestry.”

 

Okay, that was weird; let’s talk about politics

Two members of the Middleton St. George parish council got in a fight that ended up with scratches, blood, bruised fingers, and a broken pair of glasses, all of which filled a fair number of column inches and could have saved that Chicago newspaper from having to review nonexistent books.

The men involved in the fight are both in their 70s, and if both are telling the truth they each hit the other one first. Sadly, no one was wearing a body camera, so we may never be sure, but an audio recording does include one of them saying, “David, no, please, there are women in here.”

Women? Horrors! What are they doing in a meeting? Never mind, they won’t stay long. Both of you sit back down and pretend to be grownups until the ladies go back to the kitchen to make the tea.

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If anyone’s gotten into a physical fight in Parliament lately, I missed the story, so we’ll have to make do with fires in Westminster Palace, where Parliament meets: there’ve been 44 in the past ten years. The building’s also full of toxic material, and no, I’m not casting aspersions on any political parties, although it wouldn’t take much to tempt me. I’m talking about asbestos, which has been found in over a thousand items.

Items? Beats me. It’s an odd word for the context.

The building was built between 1840 and 1860, which makes it newer than a lot of British buildings, but it’s held together by chewing gum and political bile. Specifically, disagreements over whether to spend money on either replacing the building with something new and functional or on the serious repair work that would make it safe. 

The problem is that either approach would cost billions and take ten years at an optimistic estimate. Less optimistically, it could take seventy years. Putting it off would cost more in the long run and risk the whole place going up in highly embarrassing flames. But spending billions on a refurb of Parliament’s meeting place isn’t a good look at a time when we’re being told there isn’t enough money to put the National Health Service back on its feet, when money’s being pared away from the disabled, and when–oh, hell, I could extend the list for many dismal paragraphs but won’t. 

Prediction? The story will drag on for years, unresolved. Unless it goes up in flames.

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Boris Johnson–former Conservative prime minister and continuing national embarrassment–was selling a photograph (that’s of him, with you, in case I haven’t been not clear) for £121 before an event called “An Evening with Boris Johnson.” Tickets were extra, but for your £121 you did at least get a free handshake. 

If you only bought a ticket, all you got for your money was a seat. 

Unnamed allies of Johnson’s say he’s scoping out the possibility of a political comeback: he’s bored out of Westminster and thinks there’s unfinished business. Which, no doubt, only he can wrap up. 

To be fair to him, he’s not our only continuing national embarrassment. If we could make money exporting embarrassing politicians, we’d even out the balance of trade–which was, as I’m sure you know–£3.70 billion in March 2025. 

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Meanwhile, back at Westminster, a Conservative MP claimed more than £1,100 in expenses for copies of Whos’ Who, which are available for free in the House of Commons’ library. 

Why did he need his own? I’m speculating here, but probably because he’s listed in it. And, you know, some days you just need to open the book and reassure yourself that you exist. And existed in three previous years, because he bought copies for each of four years. 

I’m sympathetic. Sometimes I have to look at my blog to remind myself that I exist. I mean, who doesn’t? Why else do we publish these things?

“Party Gate” artwork sweeps the Turnip Prize

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This year’s Turnip Prize winner is Mr. Keep Calm for his artistic creation, “Party Gate.” 

You know about the British scandal called Partygate, right? It was about the government of the day throwing parties inside (and outside) 10 Downing Street during the pandemic while the rest of the country was in lockdown and less well-connected people were being fined (some heavily) for breaking the rules. Not to mention while families were being kept from saying goodbye to dying relatives. It shocked us all that a government led by someone as correct and responsible as Boris Johnson would do such a thing. Not one of us had noticed the first two, three, or fifteen parties they threw. Even the ones that made the front pages.

So that explains the work’s title, but what’s the Turnip Prize? It was created in 1999, after Tracy Emin won the prestigious Turner Prize for a piece of art called “My Bed,” which was–you got it–an unmade bed, presumably hers, although never having slept with her, or wanted to, I can’t vouch for that. 

The Turnip contest rules specify that any work that displays “too much effort” is disqualified.

Mr. Keep Calm’s work qualified. “I was too lazy to take the gate to the recycling tip and decided to enter it into the Turnip Prize,” he said. “It’s a great honour and I can see this as an opening for greater works to come.”

Competition organizer Trevor Prideaux said, “Mr. Keep Calm . . . clearly has what it takes to be recognised in modern art circles and will be remembered in art history for no time at all!”

Irrelevant photo: fields after a frost.

Did a New Zealand MP pledge loyalty to King Charles or a skin rash?

New Zealand hasn’t cut its ties to the British crown, so its MPs have to pledge allegiance to the monarch-of-the-moment, who at the moment (spoiler alert) is named Charles. So some members of the Māori Party pledged allegiance in Māori–not a controversial thing to do; it’s one of the country’s official languages–using harehare, a word for Charles that can also mean a skin rash. Or something unpleasant. 

A skin rash and its related meanings are the more common translations, but either Charles or Charlie is arguably accurate. Te reo Māori–the Māori language–is like that. One word can have so many meanings that I stopped turning to the dictionary. It was leaving me more confused than I was when I started. And if that isn’t difficult enough for someone trying to learn it, the language has multiple variants, so pronunciations and meanings shift depending on where you are and who you’re talking to.     

In the past, the Māori Party has called for New Zealand to divorce itself from the monarchy, but I’m wondering if a skin cream wouldn’t be more appropriate.

 

Countries that don’t exist

I seem to remember Ikea selling a shower curtain that featured a map of the world with New Zealand deleted, possibly because some people are phobic about rashes. But that’s ancient history–it happened at least two years ago and probably more. Who remembers that far back? The updated version of Your Planet, Edited, comes to us courtesy of Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, which was asked whether Australia existed and answered no. It was sure enough of the result to put it in a nice little text box.

And that’s how I learned about a longstanding conspiracy theory that claims Australia’s fake news. 

Are they serious about that? These days, who can tell? 

Once the news of Australia’s non-existence hit social media, an Australian wanted to know, “Does that mean I don’t have to pay my bills?”

Sadly, it doesn’t. Later searches held that Australia does, in fact, exist. And if the person who raised the question hasn’t fallen into the sea, it will be taken as proof of the country’s existence, because some people will seize on anything to prove they’re right.

 

And that gives you real confidence in . . .

. . . Sports Illustrated, which published several articles generated by artificial intelligence on its website, complete made-up names for the writers and AI-generated author photos.

Or else the articles weren’t generated by AI. It depends who you want to believe, since we can all believe whatever the hell we want these days. 

As far as I can figure out, Advon Commerce, “an e-commerce company that works with retailers and publishers,” generated the copy, and it told the owners of Sports Illustrated that “the articles in question were written and edited by humans” but that it lets writers use pseudonyms to protect their privacy. 

You know what writers are like. They can be so shy about getting their names out.

The scales have tipped heavily in the direction of the articles being generated by AI, with the weasel-words (you know: might, appears to, that kind of thing) disappearing from articles about it. The company that owns Sports Illustrated has since fired its CEO, not long after having fired three lower-level execs.

Did any of that have to do with the articles?

“We have nothing further to add to the company’s prior statements regarding AI,” a spokesperson said.

Staff at the magazine, along with the union representing them, pitched a fit when the articles first came out–they would’ve anyway, but the magazine’s owners has been cutting staff recently, which didn’t put them in a forgiving mood–saying the articles violated basic journalistic standards.

As we all know, though, cutting staff and using AI to generate articles aren’t related. I only put them next to each other because I’m a rabble-rouser from way back.

 

Your understated headline of the week . . .

. . . comes from the Guardian, a newspaper I have a huge amount of respect for, but that won’t keep me from making fun of it. It’s pretty good at making fun of itself anyway. A November 6 headline reads, “Sellafield nuclear leak could pose safety risk.”  

Yes, I could see where a nuclear leak might do that. 

Full disclosure: the online headline that I linked to is a little different but still not great. The article goes on to say that Sellafield is Europe’s most hazardous nuclear site, with a crumbling building and cracks in the toxic sludge reservoir. Two days before, an article mentioned that Sellafield had been hacked as early as 2015 by groups linked to Russia and China, but that the news is only coming out now. 

So yes. It could, just potentially, post a safety risk, although I’ll admit the headline won’t win any great-headline prizes. If I get to give out the award, I’ll give it to the (sadly, unknown) paper that ran with “Red tape holds up bridge.”

 

Your heartwarming stories for the week

When California’s wildfires ripped through a stand of redwoods in 2020, it got hot enough to defoliate the trees, which normally resist burning. They don’t get to be 2,000 years old by packing it in every time a wildfire comes along. It looked like the end of the ancient trees, but they’re showing signs of life. Drawing on sugars they stored decades before, they’re pouring energy into buds that had been dormant under the bark for centuries and are now sprouting from the blackened trunks.

That has nothing to do with Britain, but what the hell. It’s a nice story. We could do with a dash of hope.

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Back in Britain, a three-year-old’s stuffed toy–a monkey called Monkey–was lost when he and his mother were on a train, and (reading between the lines here) he had the predictable meltdown. His mother says he was distraught. I expect she was too by the time she reported the loss in Birmingham, where they changed trains.

The monkey was found in Edinburgh–it had continued on to the end of the line–and was sent to Birmingham the same day. It stayed there overnight and someone found it a little Christmas sweater with the British Rail logo in sparkly yarn, then they sent on to Bristol, where mother and son collected it. It had traveled 619 miles, on three train lines. 

No charge. 

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In St. Paul, Minnesota, someone returned a library book, Famous Composers, that was more than a hundred years overdue. 

The library no longer charges for overdue books, so no charge there either. Which is just as well, because the person who returned it (predictably enough) wasn’t the person who borrowed it.