According to Newsguard, a rating system for news and information websites, it revealed that as of February 26, 2024, the number of websites utilizing AI-generated content to disseminate fake news has risen to 725.
The company in its ‘report’ stated that most of the websites have little to no human oversight and publish only AI-generated news.
In its previous report, the platform noted a rise in AI-generated sites making false or unverified claims from just under 50 in May to around 600 in December 2023, reflecting a more than tenfold increase across just over half a year.
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In the report, the 725 Unreliable AI-Generated News and information websites, labeled “UAINS,” spanned across 15 languages which include; Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Tagalog, Thai, and Turkish.
According to Newsguard, these websites typically have generic names, such as iBusiness Day, Ireland Top News, and Daily Time Update, which to a consumer appear to be established news sites. This obscures that the sites operate with little to no human oversight and publish articles written largely or entirely by bots, rather than presenting traditionally created and edited journalism, with human oversight.
The sites are reported to have churned out dozens and in some cases hundreds of generic articles, about a range of subjects including politics, technology, entertainment, and travel. The articles have sometimes included false claims, including about political leaders.
Other false claims relate to celebrity death hoaxes, fabricated events, and articles presenting old events as if they just occurred.
In many cases, the revenue model for these websites is programmatic advertising under which the ad-tech industry delivers ads without regard to the nature or quality of the website.
NewsGuard further noted that as a result of the proliferation of AI-generated fake news, top brands are unintentionally supporting these sites. It added that unless brands take steps to exclude untrustworthy sites, their ads will continue to appear on these types of sites, creating an economic incentive for their creation at scale.
In addition to the sites included in the Tracker, NewsGuard analysts also identified a Chinese-government run website using AI-generated text as authority for the false claim that the U.S. operates a bioweapons lab in Kazakhstan infecting camels to endanger people in China.
As technology continues to advance rapidly, the world has evolved to the forefront of a new era in journalism. AI-generated news articles are becoming more commonplace as media organizations and publishers seek to streamline their operations and meet the ever-growing demand for content.
While this technology has the potential to revolutionize the news industry, there are concerns about the accuracy and reliability of these articles. AI is reported to be automating the creation of fake news, spurring an explosion of web content mimicking factual articles that instead disseminate false information about elections, wars, and natural disasters.
From unreliable AI-generated news outlets operating with little to no human oversight, to fabricated images produced by AI image generators, the rollout of generative artificial intelligence tools has been a boon to content farms and misinformation.
With the rise of AI-generated fake news content, The World Economic Forum (WEF) listed AI-generated misinformation/disinformation as one of the top risks that countries globally will face this year 2024.
To combat the growing risks of misinformation, governments of several nations are beginning to roll out new and evolving regulations to target both hosts and creators of online disinformation and illegal content.