Earlier this week, a news report highlighted the perils of blindly relying on artificial intelligence. It made me pause to consider the impact of AI on our future.
Welcome to the 114th edition of The Sunday Spark, a series with weekly thoughts and highlights, nuggets of learning, and a simple living challenge for the week. Along with the downside of AI, this week’s edition looks at a big birthday for the metric system, taxing low-value Chinese goods, the cost of an American-made iPhone, and simplifying healthy snacking.
On my mind this week: Oops! AI did it again!
Earlier this week, I saw this funny meme on Facebook.
A few hours later, a piece on CBC news caught my eye. The Chicago Sun-Times found itself with egg on its face after it published a summer reading list in its Heat Index supplement. The problem? While the authors’ names on the list were real, 10 out of 15 books on the list don’t exist.
When savvy readers complained, the Sun-Times had no explanation. Upon further investigation, they discovered the piece was licensed editorial content that was not created, or approved, by the Sun-Times newsroom.
Ultimately, the Sun-Times learned a freelancer hired by an independent content producer had used AI to produce the list. But the “writer” failed to fact check the AI-generated list. When readers pointed out factual errors in some of the other pieces in the supplement, the freelancer said he “used AI for other stories in the special section and couldn’t guarantee he fact-checked those articles completely.”
Not surprisingly, the freelancer’s contract has since been terminated. But the damage is done. The Sun-Times has not only lost credibility with its readers, but also with the professional journalists it employs.
What can we learn from this?
AI is here to stay, and it has the potential to be a very useful tool that can save a lot of time and make things more efficient. On the other hand, this example exposes the risks of blindly relying on it.
As organizations turn to AI to cut costs and increase output, they can’t dispense with experts and experienced staff. The Sun-Times learned that lesson the hard way. Although this piece was outsourced and not produced by their staff, as the publisher of the content, the Sun-Times is ultimately accountable.
For us as content creators, we need to keep in mind that the easy way is rarely the best way. Our personal integrity is on the line if we rely on AI to do our work for us. Fact checking is critical.
And as I shared in my recent post about misinformation, we can no longer believe everything we read—even if it comes from what we believe to be credible sources. As consumers of information, we must question everything and do our own fact checking before sharing.
Lack of intelligence isn’t the problem
Despite what the meme says, I don’t believe the problem is lack of intelligence. I think it comes down to a combination of corporate greed, individual laziness, and a general lack of integrity. If we can’t rein in those things, AI has the potential to be a destructive force.
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Three highlights of the week
It’s important to celebrate big milestones and simple pleasures in life. Keeping the trend going, here are three highlights and simple pleasures of the week gone by:
- On Wednesday, I got together with some musician friends. I think we have enough people to put a new jam band together. I’m so excited.
- My daughter Colleen is home for a few days. We haven’t seen her since early April so it’s good to have her home.
- On Friday, my high school girlfriends and I went out for the latest instalment in our ABCD lunch series. It was my turn to choose the location starting with the letter F. We had a delicious lunch and catchup at The Firehall restaurant in Oakville.
Things I learned this week
Life is all about learning. Here are three things I learned this week:
A big birthday for the metric system
May 20th was the birthday of the metric system. I was surprised this week to learn this system of measurement used in most countries has been around for 150 years. I always assumed the metric system was much newer.
Growing up in England, I learned Imperial measurements. Canada officially adopted the metric system in 1975. Fifty years later, Canada is mostly metric with a few odd exceptions. Take temperature for instance. We use Celsius when discussing weather, but most of our ovens measure temperature in Fahrenheit.
(Source: Lloyd Alter on Substack)
Taxing “low value” Chinese goods
Amid all the talk about tariffs, there’s one piece of news I can totally get behind. The G7 countries are looking to add tariffs on oversupplied low-value Chinese products.
These tariffs would target cheap “bargains” coming from platforms like Temu and Shein that have a huge environmental cost. I read last week that Temu and Shein need 88 cargo plane flights a day to ship their goods around the world!
At some point, we have to ask ourselves how much cheap crap the world really needs.
(Source: Yahoo Finance)
How much would you pay for an iPhone?
As the US government puts pressure on Apple to manufacture their products in America, news reports this week predicted iPhones would triple in price if they were made in America. Would you pay $3,500 (at current exchange rates that’s close to $5,000 CDN) for an iPhone? I know I wouldn’t.
Will the current “made in America” push be the thing that forces Americans to reduce their consumption? Call me a skeptic, but I believe the insatiable thirst for stuff will win out over the “Made in America” rhetoric in the long run.
This week’s simple living challenge – Prepare healthy snacks ahead of time
Simplifying life is a big part of living more intentionally. With that in mind, I kicked off the year with 52 ways to simplify your life this year, including a downloadable checklist of weekly tasks.
There’s still time to set your own theme for the new year and resolve to build some new habits in 2025.
This week’s challenge is to prepare healthy snacks in advance to reduce the chance of grabbing something unhealthy when time is short. This is definitely an area that I can improve on.
I’d love to hear what you think about any of this week’s topics. Drop me a comment below and let me know your thoughts and ideas.
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I had quite the chuckle about AI hallucinations in the Chicago summer reading list. I shared it with colleagues to share with their AI literacy program participants as a great timely example of the limitations of AI and the importance of the human-in-the-loop AI approach.
Thanks, Ab. I admit it made me chuckle too, but it’s such an important reminder of the important role that real people with knowledge and experience play in the process.
I’m with you on the unhealthy snacks when I’m in a hurry, Michelle. That story about the Sun-Times is so interesting. I love your conclusion that fact checking is critical — on everything, AI produced and not!
Hope you are enjoying your time with Colleen! Lovely!
It’s just so easy to grab something sugary or salty. Healthier options take more effort. And yes to fact checking! I have to wonder how many more examples like this we’ll see before organizations recognize that you can’t automate wisdom and experience!
Thanks, Wynne!