Taggart 
What's going on here? The matplotlib maintainer this story is about correctly notes that all the quotes from his post in the article are made up.
UPDATE: Link was pulled; see below.
UPDATE: They pulled the story, but I had it up and had SingleFile in my browser, so: https://mttaggart.neocities.org/ars-whoopsie
This scoop brought to you by the TTI Intel Feed, which also routinely beats commercial threat intel to the punch on important emerging threats.
Putting this here so all can see it. Ars forum thread where the pull and investigation are mentioned: https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/journalistic-standards.1511650/
Journalistic standards?
Hi folks, Since Ars is apparently posting partially or fully AI generated articles now, I have to ask - is this going to be a continued policy going forward? That is, will Ars be officially publishing AI generated content from now on? If so, will it be marked? This is obviously pretty concerning.
The Orange Theme@mttaggart Locking the comments seems pretty... bad? I mean, one of their authors generated slop, and one of their editors approved slop. Is it more complicated or...? (I'm being a little flippant, but this is a terrible look for Ars already.)
@theorangetheme I think the lock might be SOP for a pulled story. And mods tend not to like rampant speculation.
Aliide@mttaggart @theorangetheme I'm genuinely confused about how this was allowed to happen. I tend to assume Ars has better editorial processes than some of the places I've worked, and both writers have long-term specialisations. My most charitable explanation is that someone created a version that they though would be funny and that was accidentally published. Very curious to see what their investigation yields.
@aliide @mttaggart I think people either simply don't care anymore, or workers are under such corporate pressure to either deliver or use AI (or both), and this is the natural endpoint of that. Probably a little of both (I know genuine enthusiasts, for whom I've lost all respects, but I also know people who are basically being forced to use AI by their corporate overlords). I don't know much, but I do know this: journalists don't run newspapers.
@theorangetheme @mttaggart oh, we very much don't, and I've even had editors insert mistakes into my stories before, without giving me readbacks. But this isn't the case of a single word or phrase, this is entire quotes being inserted. I don't buy into the idea that there is pressure on journos to use AI though — the point of the profession is original work, which AI by definition cannot do.
@aliide @mttaggart I hope you're right. I'm trying not to be too cynical, but it's hard lately.
@aliide @mttaggart Thank you for the work that you do, by the way. Good journalism is a treasure, and sorely needed.