Welcome to AI Hell.

CNET Effect

Fresh off the heels of CNET being outed for using artificial intelligence to write articles, BuzzFeed has announced that its content machine will soon be assisted by ChatGPT creator OpenAI.

As the Wall Street Journal reports, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti announced in a memo to staff today that moving forward, AI will become more central to the company's content operations.

Peretti said that OpenAI's text-generation software will be used to enhance the company's infamous millennial-bait quizzes, which have such pithy headlines as "Pick a trope for your rom-com," or "Tell us an endearing flaw you have." The AI's role would be to create personalized responses that users would want to share on social media, according to the memo reviewed by the WSJ.

In the memo, the CEO and Jordan Peele brother-in-law claimed human content creators will continue to be the main architects of the site's copy as they provide ideas, "social currency," and "inspired prompts" for the algorithms. Peretti added, somewhat creepily, that in the next 15 years, he expects AI to "create, personalize, and animate the content itself."

Et Tu, Jonah?

News of BuzzFeed's pivot to AI comes not only after our extensive reporting on CNET's decision to use algorithms to write some of its copy, but also after mass layoffs in both the media and tech worlds, with the Washington Post being the most recent site of carnage. Of course, BuzzFeed itself has also seen plenty of rounds of layoffs, especially after it was acquired by a private holding company last year and subsequently laid off 12 percent of its staff.

The WSJ's report did not indicate whether or not Peretti mentioned any job cuts in his memo to staff, but that's no doubt on his employees' minds given the climate surrounding AI as a potential replacement for human writers and, you know, that recession we're barrelling towards.

More on AIs (maybe) stealing our jobs: ChatGPT Shamelessly Writes Letter Announcing Layoffs While Promoting Execs and Quoting MLK


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