AI-Generated Articles Spark Controversy for Australia's Science Magazine

One of Australia's leading science magazines, Cosmos, faced backlash Thursday after publishing AI-generated articles that experts claimed were inaccurate or misleading.

Use of AI in Science Journalism

Cosmos, published by Australia's state-backed national science agency, utilized OpenAI's GPT-4 to generate six articles published last month. Although the use of artificial intelligence was disclosed, the Science Writers Association of Australia expressed serious concerns over this practice.

Criticism from Science Writers

Association president Jackson Ryan told AFP that in the AI-generated Cosmos article 'What happens to our bodies after death?', the descriptions of scientific processes were inaccurate or overly simplified. For instance, the AI service wrote that rigor mortis sets in 3 to 4 hours after death. Ryan stated that scientific research indicates the timing is less definitive. Another example included the description of autolysis—a process in which cells are destroyed by their enzymes—which the article described as "self-breaking". Ryan pointed out that this was a poor representation of the process.

Ryan added that, in general, these errors could harm people's trust in and perception of the publication.

Response from the National Science Agency

A spokesperson for the national science agency stated that the AI content had been fact-checked by a "trained science communicator and edited by the Cosmos publishing team". Cosmos will continue to explore the use of the AI service throughout the experiment, the spokesperson said.

Debate Over AI in Journalism

The magazine faced additional criticism for using a journalism grant to develop its artificial intelligence capabilities, potentially at the expense of human journalists. Former Cosmos editor Gail MacCallum told Australia's national broadcaster ABC that while she was a "huge advocate of exploring AI", having it create articles was "beyond my comfort zone". Another former editor, Ian Connellan, told the ABC he had not been informed of the AI project and, if he had, he would have advised against it as a "bad idea".

The Growing AI Debate

The use of AI is becoming a major battleground for publishers and content creators. The New York Times recently sued ChatGPT-creator OpenAI and Microsoft in a US court, alleging that the companies' powerful AI models used thousands of articles for training without permission.

Emerging AI giants are facing a wave of lawsuits over using web content to build systems that generate content based on simple prompts.