BuzzFeed says it will use AI to help create content, stock jumps 150%

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/26/media/buzzfeed-ai-content-creation/index.html

by isaacfrond • 3 years ago

85 99 3 years ago

cnn.com

senttoschool• 3 years ago

At this point, it's a penny stock.

If it uses AI to create content, it'll go bankrupt pretty fast.

Why? Because Buzzfeed has no proprietary AI content creation tech that others can't easily replicate.

avereveard• 3 years ago

Yeah that is a point that I wish more understood. Many companies think they're mining a new gold mine, but they're just positioning themselves as middlemen, opening up both to competition and being squeeze from their providers.

ClikeX3• 3 years ago

Buzzfeed has been pumping out so much meaningless content that I doubt it changes much. They already scrape so much content from /r/askreddit that it might as well be automated already, now they can auto generate the fluff text between citations.

Blogs have been becoming less and less relevant to me over the years as companies shifted to creating content for the sake of traffic. Some tech blogs have some really interesting posts, hidden in a sea of glorified Getting Started tutorials.

spaceman_20202• 3 years ago

The only value it has at this point is the brand name, SEO footprint, and existing traffic/followers.

sfmike2• 3 years ago

same could be said for a webserver. CNN has been using AI awhile and they're not becoming worthless.

Kaotique• 3 years ago

This could the beginning of the end for SEO content. The value of these companies will go up for now because of more content and therefor more engagement, but after the world is flooded with mass generated content the engagement will drop and content will eventually become worthless.

ChuckNorris89• 3 years ago

and content will eventually become worthless

Eventually? Are you saying Buzzfeed content is currently NOT worthless?

"Am I so out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong."

What does the online future look like? Drowning in mountains of AI generated garbage and AI based search engines who won't be able to differentiate between fake AI generated stuff and the truth, so we'll get garbage answers?

whstl• 3 years ago

Good questions there. I could agree that Buzzfeed content is perhaps worth very little or even nothing in the grand scheme of the internet, but it's at least a fun past-time to some people.

SEO-driven marketing content, however, is worse than worthless: it produces negative value to the mankind. It pollutes Google searches, it distills knowledge even further, it is written by either robots or underpaid freelancers, and it drowns out the work written by professionals in the area.

luckylion2• 3 years ago

Or rather, the end of the easy mode search engine. Google has been losing the fight against SEO for the past years. I'm not sure if they don't care (because ads bring in the money, not SERPs) or if they can't.

Relying on PageRank / links (like they currently do as the super-dominating factor) doesn't work if larger sites will employ AI (like BuzzFeed).

Relying on their ability to tell apart AI and human generated texts? I'm not sure. I'm not an expert, but I fed in text from a German public broadcaster into one of the "identify ChatGPT" things and it said it looked like ChatGPT. I doubt these technologically conservative editors are using ChatGPT to write official reports.

Instead, they'd need to understand the topic at hand to judge whether a page is useful in answering the user's question. And at that point, they have an answering machine and no longer need to show search results.

PurpleRamen3• 3 years ago

Or rather, the end of the easy mode search engine. Google has been losing the fight against SEO for the past years. I'm not sure if they don't care (because ads bring in the money, not SERPs) or if they can't.

It's probably that they can't. It's hard to evaluate content which you don't understand and when you have the whole world gaming against you. Likewise, it will be also interesting to see if AI really can change this, because the results so far were not gamed by SEO. At the end AI has the same problem to solve if it wants to replace search engines. The question is also how fast AIs can update their knowledge. Google Search can be blazing fast in delivering the newest results even for the most random topic.

Relying on PageRank / links (like they currently do as the super-dominating factor) doesn't work if larger sites will employ AI (like BuzzFeed).

Aren't they doing more than this for some time now? Though, true that links alone are not very useful against Manipulations. Maybe letting AI curate the results will be the trick? Another problem might be that Google want's to stay simple and vague. Which is of course legit, as more information will give SEO more attack-surface. But maybe add a more complex interaction-mode for people who don't just search 2-3 words. A built-in ai-prompt which switches to some ChatGPT-Like response is an obvious google-style solution to battle against the new wave of competitors.

Relying on their ability to tell apart AI and human generated texts? I'm not sure.

Is this necessary? At the end, it's a matter of quality. If AI-Texts are high quality, delivering exactly what you want, why not? After all, the problem with spam today is the quality. Though, for this of course Google would need a kind of quality-check, which their own AI can deliver, maybe.

Relying on their ability to tell apart AI and human generated texts? I'm not sure. I'm not an expert, but I fed in text from a German public broadcaster into one of the "identify ChatGPT" things and it said it looked like ChatGPT. I doubt these technologically conservative editors are using ChatGPT to write official reports.

But they usually use a very formalistic template-based style. Often it's even just copy & paste of paragraphs from different sources. So yes, news are already very AI-like today, even without AI involved. The human usually only brings in their skill in evaluating the content and composing them with matching parts.

Instead, they'd need to understand the topic at hand to judge whether a page is useful in answering the user's question. And at that point, they have an answering machine and no longer need to show search results.

Yes, but people have not always questions to answer. And it's also a kind of trust-issue whether I want to see the original source, or some more context to the answer, or whether I blindly trust the answer from Google. I mean they already today have common Q&As in their search results, and you can see also where they are coming from. But often they don't quite satisfy my demand. Sometimes they are to short, sometimes they are plain out wrong. Sometimes they are just not what I search. Traditional search still has its place even with AI, until we reach the age of completely trustable strong AIs.

pards2• 3 years ago

Relying on PageRank / links

Search engine companies learnt long ago that parsing all that content was time-consuming and costly, so they simply use the 'meta' tags instead.[0]

[0] https://calpaterson.com/metadata.html

PurpleRamen3• 3 years ago

As if Buzzfeed has today any label of quality... Well, ok, their Articles are quite good, they even got a Pulitzer IIRC. But overall, Buzzfeed is already a synonym for generic lifetime-wasting trash-content. I'd even say, an AI might actually improve the quality, bringing us a golden age of worthy trash. Because the dirty little secret at the end of all of this is: People like trash. Good Trash can be entertaining and supporting your procrastination. Sometimes it can even be informative, or at least giving you the impression.

marban• 3 years ago

Pulitzer => Buzzfeed News, not Buzzfeed.com

buran77• 3 years ago

The value of these companies will go up for now because

Because they attach themselves to the "big thing" in tech right now. The "big thing" is a really big tide so the hope is that it will lift all boats. That's it, it doesn't have to actually do anything, just associating with this gives a good momentary boost. Used to be blockchain and NFTs until just recently.

But some companies are not boats, they're stones on the bottom barely keeping their peak above water. Others are not even in the water but on the side of a hill far away, like the Long Island Blockchain. They still wave the "big thing" flag so some of its image will rub off on them even.

Of course, unlike the the Long Island Blockchain these guys can actually generate content with AI but I don't think that's the endgame here. Doesn't take a genius to tell that hundreds of clones can now pop up and deliver perfect equivalence with little to no effort. So the goal is probably to pump and dump while there's still something to dump.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/10/investing/blockchain-long...

ergonaught• 3 years ago

SEO content is already "underperforming" unless you're in some kind of "niche" that filters you out of "participation" in the wider network, and those "just hasn't been hit yet".

ex: some of my sites are effectively invisible on search engines unless the engine is "filtering" based tightly on my geographic location because the wider "content network" is simply flooded with noise, and that problem is worsening already.

csomar• 3 years ago

I had a discussion with a friend about this the other day. In the future, you’ll use an AI to write emails. The AI will learn about your style and then write targeted emails for your audience. Your audience, becoming tech savvy, will now use their own AI to answer your emails. We are going to end up with AIs talking to AIs. AIs writing content but also AI reading this same content and learning from it.

Talk about the trading economy being a zero-sum game where people are moving tokens from one hand to another? Wait until you see the AI economy.

DharmaPolice• 3 years ago

Well, that's the sort of the personal digital assistant I actually want - something to manage my inbox/diary, respond to the trivial stuff (which is most things) and then escalate to me the things that are beyond it's scope (or things from experience it knows I want to see). Of course, I'll stop reading what my "assistant" has said on my behalf after the first week and it'll spiral out of control from there.

pards2• 3 years ago

The AI will learn about your style and then write targeted emails for your audience

The AI will need a corpus of _your content_ to draw upon if it's to write in your style. One could feed it one's work inbox (presuming one's employer allows this) but new grads won't have the luxury of having once written corporate emails by hand.

lr4444lr• 3 years ago

Or, the sentiment is that they can shed a lot of unnecessary jobs and increase profit.

hanselot• 3 years ago

Based on their existing data only I would say LLM's from 3 years ago could already write better articles...

matthewdgreen• 3 years ago

Not if we can build AIs to do the engagement.

likeabbas5• 3 years ago

Leads me to believe the world will need some kind of biometric cryptographic signatures for anything we do online to show it's being done by a real human. For example, your iPhone would need to run FaceID anytime you wanted to post to hacker news. Not sure that's a world I want to live in

mmsc• 3 years ago

your iPhone would need to run FaceID anytime you wanted to post to hacker news

You can already pay people to do things for you, using their "online identity". This will just continue that.

foobarbecue• 3 years ago

Hm. Biometric captchas. I wonder if that is feasible.

Maybe the internet sends you a DNA sequence and you have to inject it, translate it and then image the folded protein (computers are ok at protein folding but not great yet)

loudmax2• 3 years ago

When you put it that way it sounds like a nuisance, but surely that could be resolved through better UX engineering.

Deciphering a captcha or staring at a camera each time you want to post are real annoyances and such a site probably wouldn't get much traction. But if the right infrastructure were in place, a lot of us would be happy to participate in a community where we're confident that everyone there is an actual person, not a spambot or a sock puppet.

The right infrastructure here could a tall order, but I don't think this is an impossible problem.

tluyben2• 3 years ago

How do you know it’s being done by real human when you only know a real human posted it? The KYC'd person didn’t have to write it; they could've used AI or another person or copied it etc. This has been lost already; I don’t think communities should filter on humans, but on high quality aka correct, informative, well written etc.

NaN1352• 3 years ago

Maybe I’m overdramatizing but as I see it, AI will accelerate the end of ALL shallow content.

And maybe thas is a good thing. Maybe as a civilization, we need to come out of slumber, of drugging ourselves out day and night with endless tv series, super hero movies and so called "games" (about 90% of which are garbage and/or cookie clickers at their core).

So it’s fascinating : our best shot at capitalism created all this technological innovation, but also so much parasitic, essentially pointless "work" where people toil away creating "content" and "entertainment" such as games, movies etc the majority of which is consumed in our "time off" to unwind and forget about "working" (I’m thinking in particular of the movie Kooyanisqatsi which illustrates this madness).

We couldn’t imagine a different way of life - but the funny thing is, AI will help us come out of this slumber by making the majority of so called "entertainment" - which is garbage let’s face it (80/20 rule and all that) - pretty much obsolete as well as valueless.

So this seems paradoxical but I believe the best thing about AI is it will free us and drive us towards real value and authenticity in our day to day relationships and expression.

Gonna be a long road though…

saurik• 3 years ago

It might become "valueless"--in that anyone can make it for free--but would it ever become "obsolete"? How often has making something everyone wants cheaper--or free!--caused people to consume less of it?

loudmax2• 3 years ago

I misread your first sentence as "This could be the beginning of the end for CEO content."

A good CEO provides irreplaceable value, but there is a significant fraction of enterprises that would probably do just well if they were run by ChatGPT.

monkeydust• 3 years ago

This is all eventually going to lead to a flight to quality - might be time to start a blog (again!)

sfmike2• 3 years ago

it could become higher engaged and converting as it will follow cialdini principles even stricter producing better quality content. Unless our minds start acting differently suddenly.

eloff• 3 years ago

It’s time for the next paradigm in search. In the beginning content was king until Google came along and discovered linking was a better signal of quality. Then people abused linking and technology for “understanding” content reached the point where that flipped again. Now where do we go? Back to linking?

ryyr2• 3 years ago

yes but no, generated blurbs by the search engine itself to answer user searched questions (how average joe uses google) will kill seo; you can make a million generated articles but almost no one will read them if google provides the user with a generated answer conveniently without having to trawl several links. you get no ad revenue if you get no clicks

on the content side of things i don't think people will notice

ryyr2• 3 years ago

for example, i have no need for a sports app or website to check the box score of a game, i just type in the name of the team into google and it's there at the top of the page

i don't think this is widely adopted though, most people i know are still married to the idea of having an app than using their mobile browser, it will take some time (or a stellar marketing campaign for the google and bing apps)

vlovich123• 3 years ago

So AI will summarize what other AI has written?

coffeeblack• 3 years ago

I disagree. Because AI content isn’t all the same.

Take a ChatGPT algorithm and train it on funny texts v. train it on enraging texts, for example.

The goal will be to train an AI that writes the most engaging and addictive content for the target audience.

version_five• 3 years ago

This has shades of the "long island blockchain" thing.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/21/long-island-iced-tea-micro-c...

__derek__• 3 years ago

That's exactly what came to my mind, too.

rrishi• 3 years ago

In the long run, this may backfire

dd36• 3 years ago

Doubt they have a choice.

granshaw• 3 years ago

In the long run, we’re all dead

Frummy• 3 years ago

It’s officially a bubble

rationalist3• 3 years ago

The question is, where are we on this bubble curve? If I had to guess: at the very beginning. I think there's a long way to go.

Radim• 3 years ago

“To be clear, we see the breakthroughs in AI opening up a new era of creativity that will allow humans to harness creativity in new ways with endless opportunities and applications for good,” Peretti said. [0]

Depends how the AI part is presented. Explicit or obscured? Upfront or shady?

For some people, that makes all the difference. I told my (non-technical) wife about ChatGPT when it came out, and she was revulsed. Not by the technology itself (which she couldn't care less about) but by its "feel".

When I prodded deeper, her revulsion came down to "I'd feel cheated if I realized I've been interacting with a machine masquerading as a human". Not the machine itself, but the successful masquerading.

I suspect she's not alone, and "being cheated" will be a visceral issue to a lot more people than the early money-grabbers and AI enthusiasts give credit for.

Another correction suggests the AI tool plagiarized. “We’ve replaced phrases that were not entirely original,” according to the correction added to an article on how to close a bank account.

Yeah, right.

[0] from the linked CNET piece https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/25/tech/cnet-ai-tool-news-st...

ajsnigrutin2• 3 years ago

At the end of the day... who needs humans?

On one side, you have AI creating content, on the other, you have various bots scraping ("reading") that content... what do humans do now? And what is the added value of buzzfeed compared to just conversing with chatGPT?

Dalewyn• 3 years ago

Congratulations, we have reinvented stock trading.

ClikeX3• 3 years ago

It makes me think of the Google phone bot talking to other automated phone systems.

taylorius• 3 years ago

"what do humans do now?"

Block the whole consarned shit-circus, and go and do something worthwhile instead?

throwayyy479087• 3 years ago

A lot of Zoomers are REALLY into the outdoors now. It's awesome.

"What do humans do now?" "Go outside." is a great answer. I'm going to try fly fishing this year. Might buy a canoe.

"What do humans do now?" "Be free of the grips of dopamine scrolling, finally."

dazc• 3 years ago

Don't hang up your gloves just yet, we need bots that can buy stuff (with their own money) first.

ajsnigrutin2• 3 years ago

chatgpt can easily find one of many that scalpers use and modify it, then use the ad money from ai-generated articles to buy stuff online :)

ptx• 3 years ago

Maybe humans can move to Gemini [1] while the AIs battle it out on the web. Just don't tell the marketing people.

Or, if we're lucky, the AI content generation marketers will all move to "Web3" with the blockchain proponents, where they can enjoy scamming each other, leaving the rest of us to use the regular old-fashioned web in peace.

[1] https://gemini.circumlunar.space/

nicbou• 3 years ago

At some point, someone needs to do the original research, right?

a13o• 3 years ago

This is such a self-own to admit your content is so formulaic, a bot can automate writing it.

That investors responded positively goes to show you where generative AI is on the hype curve. The trough of disillusionment comes after we accept that if a bot can write it, it's commodity content.

drdunce2• 3 years ago

Did a quick test - yep, it's ready alright:

write a buzzfeed style headline

"7 Mind-Blowing Reasons Why You Should Start Wearing Your Socks Inside Out"

petepete• 3 years ago

But what are the reasons?! I feel like I need to know.

rationalist3• 3 years ago

What are seven mind-blowing reasons to wear socks inside-out?

I don't have an account because they require a phone number to create an account, but if I had an account, I would be most curious to see its response to this prompt.

(OpenAI ignores your emails if you ask about creating an account without a phone number. I wonder why they really want those phone numbers…)

drdunce2• 3 years ago

It says:

Improved circulation: Wearing your socks inside out can help improve circulation in your feet and lower legs, which can help prevent varicose veins and other circulation issues.

Better hygiene: The inside of your socks is typically cleaner than the outside, so by wearing them inside out, you can keep your feet cleaner and reduce your risk of foot odor and other hygiene issues.

Increased durability: The inside of your socks is typically more durable than the outside, so by wearing them inside out, you can help prolong the life of your socks and save money in the long run.

Better grip: The inside of your socks is typically more textured than the outside, which can provide better grip and traction when you're walking or running.

Fashion statement: Wearing your socks inside out can be a unique and eye-catching fashion statement that sets you apart from the crowd.

Personalized look: You can also customize your socks by cutting and sewing them to create a personalized look.

Easy to remember: If you're someone who often struggles to match your socks, by wearing them inside out it will be easy to remember which one is which!

hef19898• 3 years ago

You reached your limit of free articles this month. Click here to subscribe and read more!

lolc• 3 years ago

Write a short buzzfeed article titled "7 Mind-Blowing Reasons Why You Should Start Wearing Your Socks Inside Out"

    Improve circulation: Wearing your socks inside out can help improve blood flow in your feet and legs.

    Reduce odor: The inside of your socks are less exposed to the elements, which means they are less likely to develop odor-causing bacteria.

    Increase durability: The inside of your socks are typically made from a more durable material, which means they will last longer when worn on the outside.

    Save money: Wearing your socks inside out means you'll have to replace them less often, saving you money in the long run.

    Make a fashion statement: Wearing your socks inside out can be a bold and unique fashion choice that sets you apart from the crowd.

    Help the environment: By extending the life of your socks, you're helping to reduce textile waste and decrease your environmental footprint.

    Surprise and delight: Wearing your socks inside out can be a fun and unexpected twist on an everyday item that will brighten up your day and make you feel a little more playful.

    So next time you're getting dressed, give it a try and see if wearing your socks inside out makes a difference for you. You might be surprised at how much you enjoy it!

ClikeX3• 3 years ago

In BuzzFeeds case this might actually improve the quality.

jtode• 3 years ago

Buzzfeed: "were gonna cut more jobs!"

Wall Street: (sound of stampeding powerties)

FlyingSnake• 3 years ago

This is giving me “Long Island Blockchain Tea” vibes.

It’ll be sad to see latest advances made in AI are used to sell more snake oil.

eriktrautman• 3 years ago

RIP content writers scratching out a living on a beach in Bali

consumer451• 3 years ago

Labeled as "Potentially Misleading or Incorrect" on r/investing.

Argument being that this could be related more to the fact Facebook will pay BuzzFeed for content.

https://old.reddit.com/r/investing/comments/10m0731/buzzfeed...

swader999• 3 years ago

Why is this the end of content? Can't content be good or better in its own right? Maybe AI will do a better job of researching, investigating, creating and writing.

spaceman_20202• 3 years ago

You Won't BELIEVE What New Technology Buzzfeed is Using to Create Digital Trash!

SentientAtom• 3 years ago

Lot of fear mongering here, MSN did this years ago and their content is absolutely soulless.

Ekaros• 3 years ago

Maybe it is possible that AI is used to generate the churn content. And this allows writers to spend time on some actual journalism...

Hah, who am I kidding. Probably will get rid of that if AI content generates the money.

criddell• 3 years ago

Buzzfeed did win a Pulitzer for their series exposing the detention of Muslims in China. The potential is there, they just need to let their people do the work they are capable of.

nemo44x• 3 years ago

This is very interesting in that many journals/blogs/news sites have made strong pushes to unionize in recent years. Technology is now giving them another shot with new AI tech. How will these powerful unions respond?

fnordpiglet• 3 years ago

Sadly it’ll probably become more accurate and less biased.

julesqsjulesqs• 3 years ago

didn't we already have an era of content farms mass producing SEO content like ten years ago? this doesn't seem any different, their just paying to use AI instead of cheap contractors

giarc2• 3 years ago

Remember during the crypto boom and companies stock would pop on PR that they were accepting crypto payments. There were even companies that were wrongly attributed to having moved into the crypto space and still got the pop.

I wonder if ChatGPT or AI is next.

catchnear4321• 3 years ago

Once the damage is done, BuzzFeed will die. As will many other “content mills.”

Good. At least something positive will come of this.

danjoredd• 3 years ago

And right when I was thinking on shorting their stock...Thought about doing it 7 months ago, but backed out.

ravenstine• 3 years ago

Add this to the reasons for why I struggle to take the stock market seriously.

Can you make money off trading stocks? Absolutely. Can you successfully use the stock market as part of your retirement plan? Probably.

However, I don't "believe" in it. In no way is it operating on any intuitive sense of what would make a stock worth more than another. Today it seems entirely driven by keywords, inverted logic, and the intent to short. I don't see how artificially pumping up the market with institutionalized retirement plans helps either, besides to keep money out of the hands of the middle class and in those who can manipulate it. What's worse is stocks are becoming one of the few ways that said middle class can even get ahead; bonds have a very low yield and could even implode if the US dollar declines, inflation eats at savings, and wages struggle to keep up with said inflation.

Articles like this one are going to appear in (the equivalent of) textbooks in the future and people will look at it and wonder how we could not see what's coming for us.

On the bright side, I hope this is the beginning of the end for the flurry of bullshit on the internet. Not that there won't be plenty of bullshit to go around, as was the case pre-internet, but the combination of SEO and AI may turn into an ouroboros that consumes itself.

Though I think the ouroboros is supposed to represent the cycle of life, so maybe an "ant mill" is more analogous.

hfdkdfheh• 3 years ago

What exactly is the grievance here? Retirement plans aren't obligated to but any particular stock or index fund. You're lumping the entire market into one entity when in reality there are plenty of underperforming stocks that are very purposefully overlooked.

stuntkite• 3 years ago

The news part for me is that they actually had humans producing all those lists. You don't even need AI to make those things. It seems like the appropriate thing for them to do.

BuzzFeed says it will use AI to help create content, stock jumps 150%

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