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The AI Content Farm Apocalypse: How Parasitic Plagiarism Merchants Are Killing Journalism

a dystopian cityscape with a giant robot in the background, surrounded by broken typewriters and newspapers, with a faint image of a journalist in the foreground, looking defeated, hyper-realistic, cinematic lighting, 4k, concept art by Ash Thorp

In a shocking exposé, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has uncovered a massive AI content farm that's been churning out poorly plagiarized news stories, ripping off the work of real journalists and damaging the integrity of sports journalism. The operation, run by Initiative Media, was shut down just hours after the ABC reached out to a lawyer whose byline was listed on one of the sites.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The internet is facing a tidal wave of AI-generated garbage that's actively drowning out real journalism by real human beings. From shadowy spam operators to prominent outlets like CNET and USA Today's publisher Gannett, the trend is growing at an alarming rate.

a giant wave of AI-generated articles crashing down on a small island of real journalism, with a lone journalist standing on the shore, looking out at the horizon, hyper-realistic, cinematic lighting, 4k, concept art by Simon Stalenhag

Just last week, Futurism reported on a company called AdVon that's used AI to patch together low-quality e-commerce articles, complete with fictional biographies and AI-generated profile pictures, for clients ranging from the Los Angeles Times to Sports Illustrated. And with the proliferation of AI chatbot tools like ChatGPT, the trend is only going to get worse.

a giant AI chatbot robot sitting at a desk, surrounded by screens and wires, with a thought bubble filled with plagiarized articles, hyper-realistic, cinematic lighting, 4k, concept art by Ian McQue

To some, this kind of polluting of the internet is a source of pride. Jake Ward, founder of a UK-based SEO content marketing agency called Content Growth, bragged about stealing competitors' sitemaps and generating thousands of articles using AI. Microsoft's MSN news portal has also given a platform to dubious publications pumping out AI-generated articles.

But the ABC's investigation uncovered the smoking gun: a simplistic AI chatbot prompt that was inadvertently included in an October article. "You are an experienced sports journalist," it read. "You are required to rewrite the following article. You are required to be extremely detailed. You are required to utilize Australian English spelling." The prompt continued, "You must ensure the article you generate is different from the original article to avoid plagiarism detection."

It's a stark reminder that the internet is facing a crisis of credibility, and it's up to us to demand better from our news sources. The proliferation of AI-generated content is a threat not just to journalism, but to the very fabric of our society. It's time to take a stand and reject this parasitic plagiarism that's killing journalism.