Every year, Ben Black, a 48-year-old journalist from the United Kingdom, wrote funny, fake, made-up stories for his website, Cwmbran Life, to celebrate April Fools’ Day on April 1st. But this year, when he looked it up on April 1st, he was surprised and upset to see Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) tool sharing his fake story as if it were true.
Mr. Black had completely forgotten about his old fake stories until he found that Google’s AI tool and a website for people learning to drive were treating his fake story as real. They were saying Cwmbran had more roundabouts packed into a small space than anywhere else in the world, even though it was just a joke he wrote years ago.
Since 2018, he’s come up with silly ideas like a big Hollywood sign on a mountain or a group of people swimming naked in a cold lake. In 2020, he wrote a fake story saying Cwmbran, a town, had won a world record for having the most roundabouts (those circular road things) in a small area. He changed the story later that same day to clarify that it was a piece of fake news and a joke.
As per the reports, Ben Black started writing funny, fake stories for April Fools’ Day on his website just for fun, and his wife usually helped him to think of new ideas for it. In 2020, he wrote a story about Cwmbran, a town designed with many roundabouts (circular roads) because it’s an easy way to connect houses.
He counted the number of roundabouts that were in a small area, added a fake quote from someone who lives there, and posted it online. People thought it was hilarious and enjoyed it.
Later that day, he added a note to the story saying it was an April Fool’s joke so everyone would know it wasn’t real. But the next day, he got upset because a bigger national news site took his story without asking, and he posted it as if it were true. Even though he tried to get it taken down, it’s still online.
After discovering it, he was very disappointed with Google. He stated that, “It’s really scary that someone in Scotland could Google ‘roads in Wales’ and come across a story that just isn’t true.”
He further said that, “It’s not a dangerous story, but it shows how fake news can easily spread even if it’s from a trusted news source. Even though I made the changes on the same day, it illustrates the internet’s potential to act independently in the future. It’s just crazy.”
Mr. Black said that AI has became a major problem for small, independent news writers like him. He explained that AI tools are taking their original stories without asking and changing them into different formats, which helps other people or companies make money off them.
He’s upset because the change will affect him, and as a result, fewer people will visit his website to read his work. He also mentioned that big news sites have made deals with AI companies to work together, but as a small publisher, he doesn’t have a chance to do the same.
He also said that this year, he didn’t write a single fake news story as he was too busy. But after seeing how his old stories got misused by the AI and others, he’s decided he would rather not write fake stories anymore.
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