WASHINGTON: A sensational story about the Israeli prime minister’s “psychiatrist” exploded online, but it was AI-generated, originating on one of hundreds of websites researchers warn are churning out tech-enabled fiction masquerading as news.
Propaganda-spewing websites have typically relied on armies of writers, but generative artificial intelligence tools now offer a significantly cheaper and faster way to fabricate content that is often hard to decipher from authentic information.
Hundreds of AI-powered sites mimicking news outlets have cropped up in recent months, fueling an explosion of false narratives – about everything from war to politicians – that researchers say is stoking alarm in a year of high-stake elections around the world.
“Israeli prime minister’s psychiatrist commits suicide,” still tops the list of “popular articles” highlighted on Global Village Space, a Pakistani digital outlet, after it made an online splash in November with baseless claims about a suicide note blaming Netanyahu.
A “substantial portion” of the site’s content, including this article, appears to be scraped from mainstream sources using AI tools, according to an analysis by NewsGuard, a US-based research organization that tracks misinformation.
After scanning the site for error messages specific to content produced by AI chatbots, NewsGuard said it found significant similarities between the yarn about Netanyahu’s “psychiatrist” to a fictitious 2010 article on a satirical website.
NewsGuard analyst McKenzie Sadeghi said when she prompted ChatGPT, from Microsoft-backed OpenAI, to rewrite the original article for a general news audience, the result was “very similar” to the article on Global Village Space.
“The exponential growth in AI-generated news and information sources is alarming because these sites can be perceived by the average user as legitimate, trustworthy sources of information,” Sadeghi told AFP.
PUSHING PROPAGANDA
The fabricated article, which came as Netanyahu pressed war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, ricocheted across social media platforms in multiple languages, including Arabic, Farsi and French.
A handful of sites published obituaries of the fictional “psychiatrist”.
The falsehood was also featured on a television show in Iran, as its host directed viewers to read the full article on Global Village Space.
The website, which relabelled the Netanyahu article as “satire” after being called out, did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.
NewsGuard has identified at least 739 AI-generated “news” sites spanning multiple languages that operate with little to no human oversight and come with generic names such as “Ireland Top News”.
But even that list is probably “just the low-hanging fruit”, said Darren Linvill, from Clemson University.
Source: CNA
