My original, editorialized title: Ars Technica Sells Out


Linking to this because I know people here read Ars Technica, and I totally didn’t become a subscriber three days before this was announced. Nope. No sir.

  • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    60
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    4 months ago

    The main problem now is that Ars Technica and all other Conde Nast publications, with it now having a vested interest in openAI (they’re getting paid by them), can no longer be reliably trusted to report on any AI or AI-adjacent topic whatsoever. And every user comment and content is now owned by openAI.

    • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      4 months ago

      I bet MFCBot would work super well if it was updated to report on if the publication’s owners had a vested interest in the topic.

      • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        4 months ago

        Oh it would. It would require the MFC site itself to actually collect and collate data on site’s parent company investment portfolios and that’s a pretty massive ask from what sounds like a very tiny team.

          • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            4 months ago

            It might be able to? Ground has a browser extension that likely indicates they have some kind of external API access, it probably could be integrated with a little bit of effort.

    • Bangs42@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      4 months ago

      I’m not so sure Ars has a vested interest in OpenAI. I actually read through 10 pages of comments. Ken Fisher was pretty active in them, and noted several times that Ars doesn’t see any of the money from this deal.

      • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        4 months ago

        Ars does not. Their chief editor has said as much. But Conde Nast absolutely does, and it WILL happen where CN will start telling Ars what they can and can’t do, because that’s how corporate ownership works. It happens every single time without fail, and that is why you can no longer trust anything they post related to AI. You toe the line to capital’s interest, or CN is gonna eject you from the org.

        • Bangs42@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          4 months ago

          Conde Nast doesn’t have an interest in driving away their readers, and AI bullshit absolutely will drive them away. They know this. Ken Fisher is the editorial lead for AI at Conde Nast (not just Ars), and said as much in the comment section.

          AI is absolutely fucking things up on a grand scale in all sorts of industries, but as of right now, Ars is relatively safe and I don’t think we need to inflate the scale of the danger.