AI-generated article calls fake tanning 'racist'
Occurred: May 2023
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An article published by the Irish Times that labelled Irish people's use of fake tan as 'cultural appropriation' has discovered to have been a hoax generated wholly or in part by artificial intelligence (AI).
Titled 'Irish women's obsession with fake tan is problematic', the article was published in the name of Adriana Acosta-Cortez, described as a 29-year-old Ecuadorian healthcare administrator living in north Dublin and whose photograph apparently accompanied the article.
However, people quickly started raising questions about the article and the author's photograph, persuading the Irish Times to retract it. Irish Times editor Ruadhán MacCormaic apologised for what he described as a 'breach of trust' and promised to make the publication's pre-publication processes more transparent.
Operator: Irish Times
Developer: Anonymous/pseudonymous
Country: Ireland
Sector: Media/entertainment/sports/arts
Purpose: Generate text
Technology: Chatbot; NLP/text analysis; Neural network; Deep learning; Machine learning; Reinforcement learning
Issue: Mis/disinformation; Ethics
Transparency: Governance; Marketing
System
Irish Times (2023). Irish women’s obsession with fake tan is problematic
Irish Times (2023). Message from the editor
News, commentary, analysis
Page info
Type: Incident
Published: May 2023