4 ms·
> There are journalists being hired to write Atlantic-worthy articles that exist only as LLM training data, because they're getting paid more than the Atlantic
by palmotea 4mo ago
> There are journalists being hired to write Atlantic-worthy articles that exist only as LLM training data, because they're getting paid more than the Atlantic would pay them for it.
I kinda doubt that quality-assertion of "Atlantic-worthy." While I have no doubt such articles are written solely as training data, I'd expect their quality to be much less than the real thing, since there's no public to critique them, probably little reputational risk for errors, and no professional ethics to uphold. Even if professional journalists were hired to do the work, I'd expect them to start phoning it in pretty quick, and skimp on fact-checking especially.
- jmalicki 4mo agoThat's where the review process comes in. I've found the review process for these things to be far more vicious and demanding than in the real world.
- palmotea 4mo ago> That's where the review process comes in. > I've found the review process for these things to be far more vicious and demanding than in the real world. 1. for your software or for these "Atlantic-worthy articles"? 2. Why would the review process hold up to the standards of a first-rate publication? I'd expect the review process to succumb to the same pressures I'd outlined. "Someone paid me to do it" will only get you so much motivation. And asking someone to write something whose only destiny is to get fed into the maw of a machine and mangled, seems like a way to eliminate all other sources of motivation.
- jmalicki 4mo agoJournalism is not my field, so I can't deeply judge how effective the reviews are. In software, the reviews for generating things that only exist as training data are far more rigorous than anything I've seen for things going into production at top companies. I agree with you that it would make sense it would be phoned in. My experience says the opposite.
- istinetz 4mo ago> journalists > professional ethics to uphold