"Earlier this week, the Washington Post announced that it would be launching "personalized" AI powered podcasts that would let users choose their own AI host to regale them on their choice of topics. And now for an entirely unsurprising update: the AI podcasts have turned out to be complete, error ridden disasters. Semafor reports that less than 48 hours after launching, the AI podcasts have sparked outrage among the WaPo's rank and file and editors alike."
""It is truly astonishing that this was allowed to go forward at all," one WaPo editor fumed on Slack. "Never would I have imagined that the Washington Post would deliberately warp its own journalism and then push these errors out to our audience at scale." "If we were serious we would pull this tool immediately," the editor added. The podcast's errors are exactly the kind you'd expect an AI model to make."
The Washington Post launched personalized AI-powered podcasts that let users choose AI hosts and topics. Within 48 hours the podcasts produced errors including fabricated quotes, misattributions, mispronunciations, and instances of editorializing by misconstruing sources' statements as the paper's positions. Internal Slack messages showed editors and staff expressing astonishment, embarrassment, and demands to pull the tool, while the head of standards called the situation frustrating. Readers and tech writers publicly flagged disturbing, context-free AI statements, and newsroom members questioned the guardrails and accuracy processes behind the rollout.
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