do you know BG3 players exploit childrenWere you aware of this Qi2 slows down older PixelsIf we wrote those misleading headlines, readers would give us a new headline — but Google is experimentally starting to replace original headlines on stories that are served with this kind of AI nonsense.
I read a lot of my news at bedtime through Google Discover, which is called “Swipe right on your Samsung Galaxy or Google Pixel homescreen until you see a news feed,” and that’s where these new AI headlines are starting to appear.
They are not all bad. For example, “Origami model wins award” And “Hyundai, Kia’s stake increased“Looks okay, even if not as interesting as the original titles. (“Hyundai and Kia are lagging behind the competition as US market share hits a new record” And “14-year-old wins prize for origami that can lift 10,000 times its own weightLooks like they’re really worth a click!)
But in an apparent effort to sum up every story in four words or less, Google’s new headline experiment is adding Very Misleading and absurd headlines for the work of journalists, and little disclosure that Google’s AI is rewriting them.
The first thing I saw was “Steam machine price revealed,” which it certainly wasn’t! Valve wouldn’t reveal it until next year. Ars TechnicaOriginal title of Far more appropriate was “Valve’s Steam Machine looks like a console, but don’t expect it to cost like one.”
“Microsoft developers are using AI“? No nonsense, Sherlock. (That was based on my colleague Tom Warren’s story “How Microsoft’s developers are using AI” – Google removed those two words that make a silly title real!)
I also saw Google trying to claim that “AMD GPU tops NvidiaAs AMD announced a new groundbreaking graphics card, when Real wccftech Story It’s about how a German retailer managed to sell more AMD units than Nvidia units within a single week. wccftechThe title was relatively responsible, but Google turned it into clickbait.
Then there are headlines that make no sense out of context, something real human editors avoid like the plague. What does it do “Schedule 1 Farming Backup“Meaning? How about?”Debate heats up on AI tag,
Make no mistake, the problem isn’t just that these AI headlines are bad. It’s like Google is taking away our agency to market our own work, as if we wrote a book and the bookstore decided to change its cover.
We work hard to produce headlines that engage readers, that present news responsibly, that help you understand Why A story immediately matters and excites you when it’s appropriate. (Does my headline for this story sound the right amount of excitement?) And yet Google thinks it can change these headlines in a way that may confuse our readers and make them think Were They generate clickbait, because the names of our publications appear right next to them.
Google reveals this Some? These news stories are about “generated by AI that can make mistakes,” but not what, and readers only see that message when they tap the “See More” button:
It’s very easy for readers to think that we intentionally send our stories to Google Discover with these titles.
The good news is that this is a Google experiment. If there is sufficient response, the company will likely not proceed further. “These screenshots show a small UI experiment for a subset of Discover users,” explains Google spokesperson Mallory Deleon. The Verge“We’re testing a new design that changes the location of existing headings to make topic descriptions easier to digest before looking for links on the web,”
But Google’s overall trend has been to prioritize its own products at the expense of sending clicks to news websites. Although the company swears it’s not destroying the web with AI search, you’d be hard-pressed to find a news outlet that agrees, and even Google has admitted in court that “the open web is already in rapid decline.”
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