After the most downloaded local news app in the US, NewsBreak, shared an AI-generated story about a fake New Jersey shooting last Christmas Eve, New Jersey police had to post a statement online to reassure troubled citizens that the story was “Entirely false,” Reuters reported. According to Reuters, NewsBreak’s AI tool, which scrapes the web and helps rewrite local news stories, has been used to publish at least 40 misleading or erroneous stories since 2021. Reuters found that not only were NewsBreak’s articles “Not always” error-free, but sometimes the app published local news stories “Under fictitious bylines.” An Ars review suggests that it’s likely that the app is also scraping news stories, perhaps written by AI, that also seem to use fictitious bylines.

Source: Top news app caught sharing “entirely false” AI-generated news

Garbage in, garbage out