Read This: How one company got caught pumping out AI "journalism"
A new report from Futurism highlights Brown Brothers Media, which has managed to exploit both Google and writers in Southeast Asia.
A recent report from Futurism exposes the unethical practices of Brown Brothers Media (BBM), an AI-generated content company. The 7,500+ word investigative piece by Maggie Harrison Dupré and Jon Christian reveals that BBM has taken advantage of gig writers in Southeast Asia, as well as Google, to generate substantial traffic. The company achieved this by acquiring existing websites and blogs that had previously published human-written content.
Notable sites cited include Space Daily, Silicon Canals, and VegOut, with the last site's founder publicly denouncing the transformation into an AI-driven platform. The Brown brothers, originally from Australia, established BBM in Vietnam due to its affordable labor costs and skilled workforce, primarily from Southeast Asian countries like the Philippines.
These gig workers were entrusted with creating vast amounts of content, often before AI technology improved enough to convincingly replace human writers. BBM reportedly utilized AI to assist its writing, but Futurism's analysis found that the vast majority of content was 100% AI-generated, with repetitive and identical articles.
Additionally, the report uncovered instances of BBM disappearing content once investigators began scrutinizing the company. The full account details the company's deceitful tactics, including the creation of fabricated authors with inconsistent narrative continuity, which can be read in its entirety.
Written by urgent.news from The A.V. Club's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
