MSN Deletes Plagiarized, Incoherent AI Articles, Then Continues Cranking Out More

Earlier today, we published a story about Microsoft's MSN news portal syndicating a garbled, seemingly AI-generated article about the recent, tragic death of former NBA player Brandon Hunter.

The article, which was put together by a publication called Race Track, accused Hunter of being "useless at 42," the likely result of an algorithm plagiarizing a TMZ Sports blog on the subject — while making an absolute mess of the source in the process.

Now, while MSN has yet to respond to our initial request for comment, it appears to have taken down the offending article, alongside several other Race Track articles identified by Futurism. The deleted articles include a recent piece about Kevin Porter Jr's arrest for domestic violence and another particularly egregious piece about "Corridor of Fame" football player "Pleasure Taylor," likely a deeply confused reference to NFL Hall of Famer Joy Taylor.

Despite MSN taking down the articles, Race Track is still publishing a barrage of barely intelligible gibberish — and MSN keeps syndicating them. Just an hour before press time, the shadowy publication published a story titled "7 Causes to Strive Golfing as a Scholar," which appears to be a ripoff of a 2022 article put together by Golf Monthly.

Another unintentionally hilarious article about Formula 1 driver Sergio Perez claims he's on team "Purple Bull," rather than Red Bull.

It's not the first time Microsoft has been caught publishing lazy, AI-generated content through its news portal. For instance, MSN published and then deleted a similarly incoherent AI-generated travel guide for Ottawa, Canada last month that recommended tourists visit a local food bank.

In other words, we're not talking about one-off examples of incoherent articles hitting mainstream news sites. By treating the issue as a game of whack-a-mole — deleting specific articles as they're discovered by publications like Futurism and The Verge — MSN is clearly failing to address the root cause of the issue.

As a result, there's a good chance we'll see more nonsensical, AI-generated articles slipping through the cracks, especially in the absence of an effective, systematic approach to content moderation. We'll be watching.

More on the story: Microsoft Publishes Garbled AI Article Calling Tragically Deceased NBA Player "Useless"