A Wyoming newspaper reporter resigned after using AI to generate fabricated quotes from seven people including the governor, creating false content that was published in multiple news stories.
Aaron Pelczar, a 40-year-old novice reporter at the Cody Enterprise in Wyoming, resigned on August 2 after being caught using generative artificial intelligence to help write news stories. The incident was discovered by CJ Baker, a competing reporter from the Powell Tribune, who noticed suspicious phrases and quotes in Pelczar's articles that seemed robotic or AI-generated. The most obvious giveaway was a June 26 article about comedian Larry the Cable Guy that concluded with an explanation of the inverted pyramid writing structure. Baker's investigation revealed that seven people, including Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon, had been quoted in Pelczar's stories but had never actually spoken to him. The Enterprise's editor Chris Bacon discovered seven stories containing AI-generated quotes from six people after launching a review. Bacon admitted he 'failed to catch' the AI-generated content and false quotes, apologizing that 'AI was allowed to put words that were never spoken into stories.' Publisher Megan Barton called the incident a 'learning curve' and described AI as 'the new, advanced form of plagiarism.' The newspaper has since implemented systems to detect AI-generated content and established policies prohibiting its use in journalism.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI systems that inadvertently generate or spread incorrect or deceptive information, which can lead to inaccurate beliefs in users and undermine their autonomy. Humans that make decisions based on false beliefs can experience physical, emotional or material harms
Human
Due to a decision or action made by humans
Intentional
Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed