Microsoft's AI-Written Travel Article Suggests a Trip to a Food Bank

An article put together by artificial intelligence utilized by Microsoft was retracted after readers discovered the bot had suggested a food bank as a tourist attraction. Per Engadget, the AI-written article (“Headed to Ottawa? Here’s what you shouldn’t miss!”) recommended a baseball game, a war museum and the Ottawa Food Bank. The AI piece was initially discovered by Twitter/X user (and “critic of tech futures”) Paris Marx, who noted that the article suggested readers “[go] into it on an empty stomach.”

Microsoft is really hitting it out of the park with its AI-generated travel stories! If you visit Ottawa, it highly recommends the Ottawa Food Bank and provides a great tip for tourists: “Consider going into it on an empty stomach.” https://t.co/7bvGemDad2
— Paris Marx (@parismarx) August 17, 2023

The article, which appeared on the AI-aggregated news service Microsoft Start, has since been taken down, though you can see a copy of it here. In a statement to The Verge, Microsoft blamed humans. “This article has been removed and we have identified that the issue was due to human error,” they wrote. “The article was not published by an unsupervised AI. We combine the power of technology with the experience of content editors to surface stories. In this case, the content was generated through a combination of algorithmic techniques with human review, not a large language model or AI system. We are working to ensure this type of content isn’t posted in the future.”

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“The perfect nonalcoholic beverage to quench your thirst and refresh your senses,” suggests the supermarket bot

A representative for the Ottawa Food Bank had a more thoughtful reply. “As AI gets more and more popular, I don’t doubt an increased number of inaccurate/inappropriate references will be made in listicles such as this,” said Samantha Koziara, communications manager at the Ottawa Food Bank, in a statement. “This simply highlights the importance of researchers, writers and editors…of the human variety.”

To donate to the Ottawa Food Bank, head here. And whatever type of tech Microsoft was using, a reminder that the company started laying off human editors and writers (and embracing AI) three years ago, well before the current obsession with generative AI and ChatGPT, which still doesn’t seem like a great replacement for human writers.