AI-Generated Local News Outlet Collapses in Florida

Ryan and Dana discuss the rise and fall of an AI-driven local news outlet in South Florida, including how it expanded quickly and why it shut down.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Ryan Gorman Show podcast presented by Verah and Farah
accident attorneys from Tampa. An investigation by The Florida trib
found the South Florida Standard, which was supposed to be
a South Florida news outlet they published multiple stories daily,
was actually powered by artificial intelligence, using fake reporters, fabricated biographies,

(00:23):
and recycled content from legitimate news organizations like our friends
over at Florida Politics. The site's fictional editor in chief,
South Florida journalist Sofia Delgado, and other listed staff members
were AI generated identities with fake headshots and biographies filled
with South Florida references. Administrators behind the South Florida Standard

(00:47):
said they didn't intend to play Darize, but acknowledge the
site used AI generated names and content. The reports at
the site began removing staff biographies and altering content after
reporters started asking questions, or eventually just taking the website
down completely. The person responsible for the site described it
as a six month experiment meant to build geographic topical

(01:12):
authority and study search engine algorithms. He said created seventeen
similar AI driven news sites across the country generated more
than thirty five hundred web pages and drew over forty
four thousand visitors. Now, Peter Shorsch, the publisher of Florida Politics,
who we have on the show every week, he said
the South Florida Standard appeared to scrape and recycle content

(01:35):
from his publication, and he said, you know, his biggest
concern is that AI systems may train on inaccurate material
pulled from fake news outlets. So then you get like,
you know, this ongoing issue where AI is thinking this
site and what they're reporting is correct in a legit

(01:57):
news source and it's not, and then that fake information
is getting pushed out there. Right.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, it really is ridiculous. And we know that the
fake news I mean chat GBT will call President Trump
former President Trump all the time. That's just one little
thing that I keep noticing. But this is really crazy.
Was there any type of disclaimer on this site that
noted that it was all AI generated and was he
making money off of it?

Speaker 1 (02:18):
That's another question. And this is not like those aggregator
websites like the Drudge Report right where.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
They pull things from different legitimate news sources. This was
all AI generated content with fake reporters taking credit for
the stories.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Right right, So, like the Drudge Report, you can go
and you can click links to the original news source.
What this was doing is it was basically repackaging stuff
that it was finding from other news sources and framing
it as like original reporting from AI generated reporters. Crazy.
That's ridiculous, Ryan Gorman Show podcast, Up we said on

(02:58):
iheartradioted by Farah and Farah Accident Attorneys, Tampa