Top News App Caught Sharing “Entirely False” AI-Generated News

upstart writes:

Most downloaded local news app adds disclaimer that it's not always "error-free":

After the most downloaded local news app in the US, NewsBreak, shared an AI-generated story about a fake New Jersey shooting last Christmas Eve, New Jersey police had to post a statement online to reassure troubled citizens that the story was "entirely false," Reuters reported.

"Nothing even similar to this story occurred on or around Christmas, or even in recent memory for the area they described," the cops' Facebook post said. "It seems this 'news' outlet's AI writes fiction they have no problem publishing to readers."

It took NewsBreak-which attracts over 50 million monthly users-four days to remove the fake shooting story, and it apparently wasn't an isolated incident. According to Reuters, NewsBreak's AI tool, which scrapes the web and helps rewrite local news stories, has been used to publish at least 40 misleading or erroneous stories since 2021.

These misleading AI news stories have caused real harm in communities, seven former NewsBreak employees, speaking anonymously due to confidentiality agreements, told Reuters.

Sometimes, the AI gets the little details wrong. One Colorado food bank, Food to Power, had to turn people away after the app posted inaccurate food distribution times.

Other times, the AI wholly fabricates events. A Pennsylvania charity, Harvest912, told Reuters that it had to turn homeless people away when NewsBreak falsely advertised a 24-hour foot-care clinic.

"You are doing HARM by publishing this misinformation-homeless people will walk to these venues to attend a clinic that is not happening," Harvest912 pleaded in an email requesting that NewsBreak take down the story.

NewsBreak told Reuters that all the erroneous articles affecting those two charities were removed but also blamed the charities for supposedly posting inaccurate information on their websites.

Read more of this story at SoylentNews.