Taggart Feb 13

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.

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/02/after-a-routine-code-rejection-an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-someone-by-name

Show threadTaggart Feb 13
UPDATE: They pulled the story, but I had it up and had SingleFile in my browser, so: https://mttaggart.neocities.org/ars-whoopsie
After a routine code rejection, an AI agent published a hit piece on someone by name

One developer is struggling with the social implications of a drive-by AI character attack.

Ars Technica
Show threadTaggart Feb 13

This scoop brought to you by the TTI Intel Feed, which also routinely beats commercial threat intel to the punch on important emerging threats.

https://intel.taggartinstitute.org/

· The Taggart Institute Intel Center

Show threadTaggart Feb 13
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.

Ars OpenForum
Show threadGraham Sutherland / Polynomial
@mttaggart if the authors unilaterally did this, they're so fired.
Feb 14 at 7:45pmWeb