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Pakistani newspaper mistakenly prints AI prompt with the article

(twitter.com)
443 points wg0 | 5 comments | 12 Nov 25 11:17 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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chrismorgan ◴[12 Nov 25 12:05 UTC] No.45899143[source]▶
The current title (“Pakistani newspaper mistakenly prints AI prompt with the article”) isn’t correct, it wasn’t the prompt that was printed, but trailing chatbot fluff:

> If you want, I can also create an even snappier “front-page style” version with punchy one-line stats and a bold, infographic-ready layout—perfect for maximum reader impact. Do you want me to do that next?

The article in question is titled “Auto sales rev up in October” and is an exceedingly dry slab of statistic-laden prose, of the sort that LLMs love to err in (though there’s no indication of whether they have or not), and for which alternative (non-prose) presentations can be drastically better. Honestly, if the entire thing came from “here’s tabular data, select insights and churn out prose”… I can understand not wanting to do such drudgework.

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michaelbuckbee ◴[12 Nov 25 13:11 UTC] No.45899711[source]▶
For years, both the financial and sports news sides of things have generated increasingly templated "articles", this just feels like the latest iteration.
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1. dredmorbius ◴[12 Nov 25 13:58 UTC] No.45900236[source]▶
This dates back to at least the late 1990s for financial reports. A friend demoed such a system to me at that time.

Much statistically-based news (finance, business reports, weather, sport, disasters, astronomical events) are heavily formulaic and can at least in large part or initial report be automated, which speeds information dissemination.

Of course, it's also possible to distribute raw data tables, charts, or maps, which ... mainstream news organisations seem phenomenally averse to doing. Even "better" business-heavy publications (FT, Economist, Bloomberg, WSJ) do so quite sparingly.

A few days ago I was looking at a Reuters report on a strategic chokepoint north of the Philippines which it and the US are looking toward to help contain possible Chinese naval operations. Lots of pictures of various equipment, landscapes, and people. Zero maps. Am disappoint.

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2. jrjeksjd8d ◴[12 Nov 25 14:15 UTC] No.45900466[source]▶
At least in the case of Bloomberg they would like you to pay for that raw data. That's their bread and butter.
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3. dredmorbius ◴[12 Nov 25 14:32 UTC] No.45900674[source]▶
True.

But there's the approach the Economist takes. For many decades, it's relied on a three-legged revenue model: subscriptions, advertising, and bespoke consulting and research through the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). My understanding is that revenues are split roughly evenly amongst these, and that they tend to even out cash-flow throughout economic cycles (advertising is famously pro-cyclical, subscriptions and analysis somewhat less so).

To that extent, the graphs and maps the Economist actually does include in its articles (as well as many of its "special reports") are both teasers and loss-leader marketing for EIU services. I believe that many of the special reports arise out of EIU research.

<https://www.eiu.com/n/>

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economist_Intelligence_Unit>

4. RobotToaster ◴[12 Nov 25 14:41 UTC] No.45900813[source]▶
Obviously the solution is to use AI to extract the raw data from their AI generated fluff.

It's like the opposite of compression.

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5. mh- ◴[12 Nov 25 16:18 UTC] No.45901999[source]▶
>It's like the opposite of compression.

I believe the word is depression, which seems apt when thinking of the idea of people using AI to make content longer and then the readers all using AI to make it shorter again.