CNET seems to have discovered AI's limitations the hard way.
On Sunday, the tech news and product reviews publication was forced to make multiple corrections to an article written by AI due to inaccuracies in basic math throughout the piece.
The article, which explained compound interest, contained at least 5 errors, including incorrectly calculating how much a person would earn if they deposited $10,000 into a savings account that earns 3%: AI said the person would earn $10,300 instead of $300.
Since the launch of ChatGPT, OpenAI's chatbot, in late November, AI's rapid advancement has been met with both celebration and horror. Some executives have called the technology "magic," while others have warned ChatGPT is still prone to get basic facts wrong.
In fact, this author recently attempted to use ChatGPT to write an Insider article from scratch. At first glance, the bot's work was impressive, but a closer read revealed the piece was riddled with inaccuracies.
Despite some of AI's flaws, CNET began quietly publishing articles "assisted by an AI engine and reviewed, fact-checked and edited by our editorial staff" in November. The publication's use of AI writing was first revealed by science and technology news site Futurism last week. After the revelation, CNET came clean, saying it has published about 75 articles using the technology.
"For over two decades, CNET has built our reputation testing new technologies and separating the hype from reality, from voice assistants to augmented reality to the metaverse," the company's editor-in-chief wrote in a blog post.
Despite the recent spate of corrections, CNET did not indicate that it's ready to stop using AI to write articles altogether. Instead, in a statement to Insider, CNET said they "are actively reviewing all our AI-assisted pieces to make sure no further inaccuracies made it through the editing process."
