AI Chatbots Help Web Content Farms Copy Work From Top Publishers, Report Says

Dozens of websites are using AI chatbots to copy and repurpose articles from top publishers, according to a report from the news-rating group NewsGuard, offering a glimpse into how artificial intelligence tools risk undermining media companies and muddying the online news industry.

The 37 websites, which Bloomberg also reviewed, posted stories that contained identical text, photos and quotes to articles previously published by the New York Times, Reuters and CNN, according to the report. The examples NewsGuard found — a mix of online content farms publishing breaking news, lifestyle content and more, including sites with names such as DailyHeadliner.com and TalkGlitz.com — didn’t credit or refer to the original authors or publications. News aggregators and content farms like these have long existed, seeking to generate traffic via search engines. NewsGuard’s report examined the use of AI to rewrite news to populate them.

Tensions have escalated in recent months between the media industry and tech companies over concerns that a new crop of powerful AI tools trained on large swaths of online data — including copyrighted works — could churn out content that undercuts the livelihoods of authors, artists and journalists. Authors have taken legal action against multiple AI companies, alleging copyright infringement, and concerns about the use of AI-generated content in TV and movies have become a major issue in the Hollywood actors’ and writers’ strikes. The New York Times is also said to be weighing legal action against ChatGPT-creator OpenAI Inc. over how its reporting is incorporated in training data, according to NPR.