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Are you excited for the impending arrival of Glorbo and its impact on the game, or do you have absolutely no idea what we're talking about? After discovering a obscure website using AI bot scraping to generate news articles, Redditors laid a trap to highlight the failures of unchecked AI reporting... and hilarity ensues.
Update: It appears the robots at Zleague have discovered the ruse and deleted their article regarding Glorbo. Fortunately, the internet never forgets. A similar bait article regarding lockpicking and keys was also deleted.
Check the full comment chain for some great laughs.
To be abundantly clear, Glorbo isn't real. Upon discovering that Zleague.gg was apparently scraping popular gaming subreddits to generate half-baked articles, Redditor u/kaefer_kriegerin decided to find out just how gullible it could be, with other commenters piling on by discussing things like "Klaxxi as a neutral playable race," the "mandatory item Klikclac and its effect on casual players," "rumors of Stormsong Valley becoming the new location for the Halfhill Market," and "the quest to depose Quackion, the Aspect of Ducks."
It should also go without saying that none of other these are real things, though the AI scripted obviously doesn't know that, and so they've all made it into the article, doubling down on the absurdity. Since then, even developers have gotten in on the fun via Twitter:
Hilarity aside, the idea of using AI to generate news articles based on community discussion has become a major talking point recently, and not an entirely unfounded fear for those concerned with the declining future of written reporting. Just last month, GAMURS Group, the publications and social media community network that owns Dot Esports and Destructoid, made waves with a job listing for an AI editor charged with creating 200-250 articles per week, replacing nearly 40% of its human workforce. The listing was quickly deleted in the face of overwhelming community and professional backlash, though it has remained the subject of discussion in publications like Science Times, who acknowledge the capability of AI powered tools, while cautioning against the lack of original observations without a human element.
Courtesy of the kenaissance, who shared the listing on Twitter.
That said, it's unclear if Zleague is using a similar approach or just leaving it entirely up to AI. Despite the Glorbo article being attributed to a seemingly real person: one Lucy Reed, who has managed to churn out an alarming 83 articles today alone, it's hard to believe that there's actually a real person reviewing these prompts at all, happily transcribing tongue-in-cheek jibes like "I just really want some major bot operated news websites to publish an article about this!"
Players have opinions. Truly the pinnacle of intellectual reporting.
If anything, this makes the situation even worse. Not only is AI scraping regurgitating other people's commentary and opinions without any original perspective, it's not even being fact checked to the point that it ridicules itself. This creates a dangerous precedent where, as evidenced by Glorbo, complete misinformation is senselessly spread without any safeguards. While we can reasonably assume that most of Zleague's articles have been created from well-meaning original content, that's not a guarantee. Saturation is also a concern, as Zleague has so far posted an absurd 926 pages of news, totaling 18,512 articles in just over two months or an average of 241 articles per day - wildly eclipsing GAMURS figures and an impossible rate to ever reasonably fact check. Glorbo's post is innocent enough and sure it's entertaining to make fun of the robot, but what happens once actually malicious individuals and bad actors with a hateful agenda get involved?
Rest assured that, for better or worse, all of our articles are at least written by real people.
Source:
www.wowhead.com
Update: It appears the robots at Zleague have discovered the ruse and deleted their article regarding Glorbo. Fortunately, the internet never forgets. A similar bait article regarding lockpicking and keys was also deleted.
Check the full comment chain for some great laughs.
To be abundantly clear, Glorbo isn't real. Upon discovering that Zleague.gg was apparently scraping popular gaming subreddits to generate half-baked articles, Redditor u/kaefer_kriegerin decided to find out just how gullible it could be, with other commenters piling on by discussing things like "Klaxxi as a neutral playable race," the "mandatory item Klikclac and its effect on casual players," "rumors of Stormsong Valley becoming the new location for the Halfhill Market," and "the quest to depose Quackion, the Aspect of Ducks."
It should also go without saying that none of other these are real things, though the AI scripted obviously doesn't know that, and so they've all made it into the article, doubling down on the absurdity. Since then, even developers have gotten in on the fun via Twitter:
Hilarity aside, the idea of using AI to generate news articles based on community discussion has become a major talking point recently, and not an entirely unfounded fear for those concerned with the declining future of written reporting. Just last month, GAMURS Group, the publications and social media community network that owns Dot Esports and Destructoid, made waves with a job listing for an AI editor charged with creating 200-250 articles per week, replacing nearly 40% of its human workforce. The listing was quickly deleted in the face of overwhelming community and professional backlash, though it has remained the subject of discussion in publications like Science Times, who acknowledge the capability of AI powered tools, while cautioning against the lack of original observations without a human element.
Courtesy of the kenaissance, who shared the listing on Twitter.
That said, it's unclear if Zleague is using a similar approach or just leaving it entirely up to AI. Despite the Glorbo article being attributed to a seemingly real person: one Lucy Reed, who has managed to churn out an alarming 83 articles today alone, it's hard to believe that there's actually a real person reviewing these prompts at all, happily transcribing tongue-in-cheek jibes like "I just really want some major bot operated news websites to publish an article about this!"
Players have opinions. Truly the pinnacle of intellectual reporting.
If anything, this makes the situation even worse. Not only is AI scraping regurgitating other people's commentary and opinions without any original perspective, it's not even being fact checked to the point that it ridicules itself. This creates a dangerous precedent where, as evidenced by Glorbo, complete misinformation is senselessly spread without any safeguards. While we can reasonably assume that most of Zleague's articles have been created from well-meaning original content, that's not a guarantee. Saturation is also a concern, as Zleague has so far posted an absurd 926 pages of news, totaling 18,512 articles in just over two months or an average of 241 articles per day - wildly eclipsing GAMURS figures and an impossible rate to ever reasonably fact check. Glorbo's post is innocent enough and sure it's entertaining to make fun of the robot, but what happens once actually malicious individuals and bad actors with a hateful agenda get involved?
Rest assured that, for better or worse, all of our articles are at least written by real people.
Source:
Glorbo isn't Coming to WoW, but the Impact of AI is Already Here
Are you excited for the arrival of Glorbo, or do you have no idea what's going on? Upon discovering an obscure website using bot scraping to create news articles, Redditors laid a trap to highlight the failures of AI reporting... and hilarity ensues.
www.wowhead.com
