How a Small Iowa Newspaper’s Website Became an AI-Generated Clickbait Factory

#spam content and pink slime   #journalism   #wired   #link  

My favorite part was the observation that the content farm people aren't interested in the drama of politics and misinformation:

Other researchers agree. "This sort of work is of great interest to me, because it’s demystifying actual use cases of generative AI," says Emerson Brooking, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. While there’s valid concern about how AI might be used as a tool to spread political misinformation, this network demonstrates how content mills are likely to focus on uncontroversial topics when their primary aim is generating traffic-based income. "This report feels like it is an accurate snapshot of how AI is actually changing our society so far—making everything a little bit more annoying."