CNET Staff Faces Layoff, Parent Firm Denies Connection To AI Tests
- by Ray Schultz , March 5, 2023
CNET owner Red Ventures is laying off staff, but the impact is not yet known, according to multiple media reports.
Ont source, The Verge estimates that 10% of the company’s staff will be affected.
In an email to the staff, Red Ventures said, "Today we are implementing a reorganization of our team, which will result in a number of colleagues leaving the CNET Group."
This follows another round of layoffs last November.
The company denies the layoff has to do with its testing of artificial intelligence to generate articles.
"Today's decision was not a reflection of the value or performance of our team members, the use of emerging technologies, or our confidence in the CNET Group's future," a CNET spokesperson said, according to Variety.
Earlier this month, CNET Editor in Chief Connie Guglielmo wrote in blog post that CNET had launched “a test using an internally designed AI engine –not ChatGPT—to help editors create a set of basic explainers around financial services topics.”
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Someone cited a factual error (“rightly,” Guglielmo acknowledged) and the team performed a full audit. Some stories required “correction, with a small number requiring substantial correction and several stories with minor issues such as incomplete company names, transposed numbers or language that our senior editors viewed as viewed as vague,” Guglielmo reported.
