GenAI continues to make major errors in news summaries

by | 28 Oct, 2025 | Systems & Technology

“45% of the AI responses studied contained at least one significant issue, with 81% having some form of problem”

I’m a big fan of using GenAI to assist in research, ideation, and even sense-checking – asking it to help me with my own critical and lateral thinking. I use these tools multiple times a day, and am constantly encouraging the journalists I work with at Today Digital o use GenAI more to help them boost both their productivity and the impact of their work.

But it’s *vital* to keep fully aware of GenAI’s limitations when using it for anything where facts are important.

No matter how often we remind ourselves that LLMs have no true understanding, no real intelligence, no concept of what a “fact” actually is, the more you use them the easier it is to be taken in by their very, very convincing pastiche of true intelligence.

As this Reuters study shows, despite the apparent progress of the last couple of years, there are still fundamental challenges – which are unlikely to ever be fully overcome using this form of AI. (And which is why LLMs weren’t even classified as AI until very recently…)

The good news? With GenAI’s limitations increasingly becoming more widely appreciated, this could ultimately be a good thing for news orgs – because why go to an unreliable intermediary when you can go direct to the journalistic source?

Journalistic scepticism and fundamental critical thinking skills are becoming more important than ever.

On GenAI writing styles – again…

by | 10 Oct, 2025 | Systems & Technology

The rhythms and tone of AI-assisted writing are now pretty much endemic on LinkedIn

And I get why: GenAI copy is generally pretty tight, pretty focused, and flows pretty well. Certainly better than most non-professional writers can manage on their own.

Hell, it sounds annoyingly like my own natural writing style, honed over years of practice…

But people I’ve known for years are starting to no longer sound like themselves.

Their words are too polished, too slick, too much like those an American social media copywriter would use, no matter where they’re from.

None of this post was written with AI.

And despite (because of?) being a professional writer/editor, It took me over half an hour of questioning myself, rewriting, starting again, looking for the right phrase. Doing this on my phone, my thumbs now ache and the little finger on my right hand, which I always use to support the weight while writing, is begging for a break.

With GenAI I could have “written” this in a fraction of the time, and it would have been tighter, easier to follow.

But it wouldn’t have been me – and I still (naively) want my social media interactions to be authentically human to human.

(Of course, the AI version would probably have ended up getting more engagement, because this post – as well as going out on a Sunday morning when no one’s looking, and without an image – is now far too long for most people, or the LinkedIn algorithm, to give it much attention. Hey ho!)