Police in a New Jersey city are urging the public to ignore a story featured on a news website about a fatal shooting they say was written using artificial intelligence.
The story on Newsbreak.com said a “local resident” was found dead in the 100 block of West Broad Street in Bridgeton on Christmas Day. It further dives into the gun debate in America as communities seek an end to violence.
“Yet, as the community of Bridgeton comes to terms with their Christmas Day tragedy, the need for a more comprehensive solution is clear,” the post read. “For the families affected, for the communities shattered, and for a nation in search of peace, the pursuit of such a solution cannot wait.”
Police on Wednesday said the story has been circulating on social media, emphasizing an italicized note at the bottom of the text that the piece “includes content assisted by AI tools.”
“Nothing even similar to this story occurred on or around Christmas, or even in recent memory for the area they described,” Bridgeton police wrote on their official Facebook page.
The story on the news website said the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the fictional deadly shooting. Officials with the agency did not immediately return a request by NJ Advance Media for comment.
Artificial intelligence use in journalism has been widely debated as the technology becomes more common.
AI is “automating the creation of fake news, spurring an explosion of web content mimicking factual articles that instead disseminates false information about elections, wars and natural disasters,” according to a recent report by the Washington Post.
NewsGuard, an organization that tracks misinformation, says websites that publish false news stories created by AI “have increased by more than 1,000 percent, ballooning from 49 sites to more than 600” during the past seven months, the Post reported.
Eric Conklin may be reached at [email protected].
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