The case of Margaux Blanchard: Publishers fall for AI-written articles
At least six prominent publications have published AI-generated articles by a fictitious freelance author named Margaux Blanchard over the past few months.
Press Gazette launched an investigation that found the curious byline appearing in Business Insider, tech bible Wired, UK arts and music journal Cone Magazine, Californian masthead SF Gate, British political site Naked Politics, and Index on Censorship.
In each case, the author used case studies of people who were unable to be verified anyone else online.
The Gazette was tipped off by Dispatch editor Jacob Furedi, who received a pitch earlier this month from ‘Blanchard’ about Gravemont, a decommissioned mining town in rural Colorado.
(Midjourney)
Furedi’s suspicions were raised by the pitch itself, which “immediately sounded” like it was written by ChatGPT, and then raised further when he realised Gravemont wasn’t an actual town.
It seems Furedi wasn’t the first to twig to Blanchard.
In May, Wired published a story by Blanchard about real-life couples holding their weddings within the Minecraft universe, which it removed two weeks later, adding the note: “After an additional review of the article, Wired editorial leadership has determined this article does not meet our editorial standards. It has been removed.”
After being alerted by Press Gazette, Business Insider removed two first-person essays by Blanchard published in April, replacing each with a short note explaining the articles “didn’t meet Business Insider’s standards”.
SF Gate, a Californian publication, also removed an article on Disneyland superfans, which profiles a fictitious influencer named Kayla Reed, who Blanchard claimed has over 100,000 followers.
A message on US site SFGate.
Index on Censorship magazine also published a first-person dispatch from Guatemala from Blanchard, a “freelance journalist covering human rights”, which it removed after being contacted by Press Gazette.
A spokesperson from IOC told the publication: “Having reviewed it, we can see it didn’t meet our editorial standards and appears to have been written by AI. We are currently also reviewing our processes.
“Index has warned for a long time of the dangers of AI impersonating people, and its threat to journalism.
“We have sadly become the victim of the very thing we’ve warned against.”
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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