Byline or bot? AI-generated ‘journalists’ start to appear in Canada

OTTAWA - Quebec correspondent Geneviève Tremblay, a Quebec correspondent who has been reporting on multiple news stories daily, appeared to be experiencing technical difficulties. The Canadian Press attempted to contact her, but her account was receiving error messages. This malfunction wasn't unique to Tremblay; all of We News' reporters and editors seemed to be malfunctioning on Friday, sending error messages when contacted via chat.

We News, a round-the-clock news portal covering Canada and the world, describes itself as using AI to generate its "journalists." One such AI persona, "Daniel Robson," was discovered to be a fake persona posing as a real person. Canadian news outlets pulled his work from their websites after realizing he was not a real person. Policy Options editor-in-chief Les Perreaux first raised the alarm in Canada, stating that he couldn't vouch for Robson as he refused to do a video call.

Originality.ai, an AI detection company, analyzed over 200 articles by "Geneviève Tremblay" and identified them as AI-generated, with the articles being rewritten versions of stories from legitimate news media outlets. The Canadian Press also found its own reporting among the sources used by the AI-generated articles. The phenomenon of AI-generated journalists is not limited to Canada, with a U.S.-based website, Futurism, also publishing a story about a company that bought legitimate news sites and flooded them with AI-generated content.