Wired and Business Insider recently pulled multiple articles penned by a mysterious freelancer named Margaux Blanchard, after discovering they were almost certainly generated by AI—and stuffed with fabricated characters and scenes.
That’s right: what looked like neat magazine features turned out to be digital mirages.
The story first tickled suspicions when “Blanchard” pitched a tale about a secretive Colorado town called Gravemont.
Upon Googling, editors found it didn’t exist. She bypassed pay systems, demanded payment via check or PayPal, and couldn’t prove her identity.
Beyond Wired and Business Insider, other outlets like Cone Magazine, SFGate, and Naked Politics also published—but then swiftly deleted—her bylines.
Inside Wired, there’s a bit of rueful awe. A pitch about virtual weddings in Minecraft seemed so vividly Wired-esque that it sailed through editorial filters—until deeper digging revealed there was no “Jessica Hu” or digital officiant.
It’s less “gotcha moment” and more “whoopsie-daisy”: “If anyone should be able to catch an AI scammer,” Wired admitted, “it’s us.”
These embarrassments aren’t isolated. Tech publisher CNET faced similar backlash when AI-written personal finance stories turned into error-riddled dumpster fires, prompting a newsroom union uprising demanding transparency.
It’s easy to mistake slick AI copy for genuine content—until you try to verify the details.
All this raises big questions: how did sophisticated AI fool clear-thinking editors? Even AI-detection tools failed to sniff it out. It shows that these systems can produce real-sounding stories with zero accountability—a scary gap in journalistic defense lines.
My take? This is the digital equivalent of a Trojan horse right in your editorial inbox. Readers, editors, and tech need to team up on stronger verification routines—and maybe a little healthy skepticism isn’t such a bad thing after all.
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