‘AI has the potential to turn this age-old problem into a modern-age monster’: Crikey unveils ‘Bullsh*t’O’Meter’ to highlight issues of AI-generated journalism
DDB Melbourne and Pow Wow Solutions have developed an AI tool for independent news organisation Crikey, accelerating the ‘bullshit-ification’ of the global media landscape by enabling users to polarise the news using artificial intelligence.
Having closely covered developments in artificial intelligence, Crikey has seen the epidemic of misinformation and ‘fake news’, and believes AI-powered journalism has the potential to worsen the situation.
According to the organisation, large language models (LLMs) “produce bullshit… when it frequently and confidently tells lies”. Even when AI tells the truth, according to Crikey, its answers still have built-in biases.
“We think AI generated journalism is one of the most important and rapidly evolving stories going on at the moment. In addition to our coverage of the issue, we wanted to give readers the chance to really understand how the technology works, and how easily it can distort the news,” sad Crikey’s editor-in-chief, Sophie Black.
“We’ve helped design the Bullshit’O’Meter to teach news consumers to recognise the slop that’s being pumped out so they don’t fall victim to it. We’re using the power of AI, in a very small dose, to show readers how corrosive it can be.”
Psembi Kinstan, ECD at DDB Melbourne, added: “Everyone involved in this project understands the threat to journalism accelerated by GenAI, but we also believe in the technology’s capacity, in very small calculated doses, to educate people on how it can be used for the wrong purposes.”
A recent study of the Australian public, commissioned by DDB, found that 54% of respondents had no awareness or no understanding of the use of generative AI in news reporting, while 90% were somewhat, very, or extremely concerned about it.
65% of respondents called for mandates on AI-modified articles, while 62% asked for more education to identify AI content. 61% of respondents sought greater awareness of the impact of AI reporting on the news.
Additionally, 53% demanded to promote more independent, 100% human-generated journalism.
The Bullshit’O’Meter invites readers to select from a range of recent significant stories on the US election, then uses AI – bespoke LLMs built by Pow Wow Solutions – to polarise those stories. It shows just how easy it is for “bad faith news outlets” to distort the truth, while educating consumers on how to spot and avoid AI-generated stuff in the future.
Showcasing how easily AI can be used to mutate stories, stories are routinely being added to allow users to experiment.
Pow Wow Solutions’ co-founder, Justin Beaconsfield, said: “We trained an LLM to highlight instances of language that are (A) factual, or (B) representing commentary that is subject to bias or emotiveness. We then fine-tuned the LLM to mimic various personalities whilst rewriting this commentary by training models on articles from different media outlets that employ various levels of bias.
“Once the models had seen enough instances of relevant language, they could consistently mimic this style.”
Freelance creative director and AI technical consultant, Max Maclean, partnered on the project and oversaw the LLMs.
“Bullshit news is nothing new, but AI has the potential to turn this age-old problem into a modern-age monster,” he said. “This issue is so big, it’s almost unbelievable.
“So we decided to put Australians behind the controls of the AI-powered news polarisation machine, so they can learn – and laugh – about just how dangerous this situation could become.”
The AI tool is being promoted through editorial on Crikey and a range of activity across its network. All articles using the Bullshit’O’Meter are not able to be copied or pulled off the Crikey platform, ensuring the stories cannot take a life of their own.
Credits:
Client: Crikey
Company: DDB Group Melbourne
Group Executive Creative Director: Psembi Kinstan
Deputy Executive Creative Director: Giles Watson
Head of Copy and Group Creative Partner: James Cowie
GM of Mango Melbourne: Alex Lefley
Head of Craft: Adam Hengstberger
Head of Production: Sonia McLaverty
Chief Strategy Officer: Matt Pearce
Creative Technologist: Andy Rovenko
CEO: Mike Napolitano
General Manager: Khia Croy
Freelance Creative Director: Max Maclean
Company: Pow Wow Solutions
Co-Founder: Ben Field
Co-Founder: Justin Beaconsfield
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the agency beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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topics
ai
AI news
artificial intelligence
Crikey
DDB
DDB Group
DDB Melbourne
fake news
journalism
Justin Beaconsfield
Max Maclean
misinformation
Pow Wow Solutions
Psembi Kinstan
Sophie Black
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