When artificial intelligence has made such inroads, how are we in the media supposed to react to it?

In some circumstances, I have no problem with AI; when it's used to take care of repetitive tasks so that humans can do what only humans can (IKEA is a good example of wise use of AI, retraining workers whose tasks were taken over instead of laying them off), it's a good thing. When it's used to replace humans entirely, especially in creative endeavors (ask me how I feel about AI-generated "art"), it's not good.

One of the biggest problems opinion editors faced most recently was astroturf: letters and columns that often come through letter-writing campaigns by special interests. When I come across something that sounds too polished or like something I've read before, I often will run isolated sentences through Google or a plagiarism checker. Sometimes I'll find it's a letter that's appeared elsewhere (against our rules, and sometimes with the same name but a different town in another state, which is also against our rules), or was a product of a letter generator for a specific topic (if you really care about a subject, speak from your own heart rather than making use of a form letter).

Recently, though, I received a forwarded message from my boss about a guest column, by a writer with whom I've had previous dealings, that someone said an AI detector showed to be nearly 100 percent........

© Arkansas Online