• by Ray Schultz , Yesterday

Margaux Blanchard, a freelancer writer whose work has appeared in Wired, Business Insider and several other publications, is suspected of being an artificial intelligence creation.

At least four periodicals have removed AI-written articles credited to the allegedly fictional Blanchard. 

One was Wired. On Thursday it published an article titled “How Wired Got Rolled By An AI Freelancer.”  Wired says it became suspicious when “the writer was unable to provide enough information to be entered into our payments system. They instead insisted on payment by PayPal or check.” 

It continues: “Now suspicious, a Wired editor ran the story through two third-party AI-detection tools, both of which said that the copy was likely to be human-generated. A closer look at the details of the story, though, along with further correspondence from the writer, made it clear to us that the story had been an AI fabrication. After more due diligence from the head of our research desk, we retracted the story and replaced it with an editor’s note.

Wired concedes, “We made errors here: This story did not go through a proper fact-check process or get a top edit from a more senior editor. First-time contributors to Wired should generally get both, and editors should always have full confidence that writers are who they say they are.”

The UK’s Press Gazette, which first broke the story, reports that Wired posted an editor’s note saying, “After an additional review of the article, ‘They Fell in Love Playing Minecraft. Then the Game Became Their Wedding Venue,’ Wired editorial leadership has determined this article does not meet our editorial standards. It has been removed.” 

It is still not clear whether Blanchard is a real person. 

Press Gazette further reported that in April, Business Insider removed two pieces by Blanchard: “Remote work has been the best thing for me as a parent but the worst as a person” and “I had my first kid at 45. I’m financially stable and have years of life experience to guide me.”

Index on Censorship and Naked Politics have also pulled down articles.