CNET "quietly publishing" AI-generated news articles

From Futurism:

CNET, a massively popular tech news outlet, has been quietly employing the help of "automation technology" — a stylistic euphemism for AI — on a new wave of financial explainer articles, seemingly starting around November of last year.

[…]

Since the program began, CNET has put out around 73 AI-generated articles. That's not a whole lot for a site that big, and absent an official announcement of the program, it appears leadership is trying to keep the experiment as lowkey as possible. CNET did not respond to questions about the AI-generated articles.

The list of AI-generated articles are all attributed to CNET Money. This might appear as a staff credit for finance-based articles, but it's not until you click through to the author's profile that it explains:

This article was assisted by an AI engine and reviewed, fact-checked and edited by our editorial staff.

It is curious that this move is coming from CNET of all places — a notable tech journalism outlet with a long history. And that it's all articles about money. Is it a meta-commentary thing, like the all-AI sci-fi magazine? Or is it just yet another example of media companies cutting labor costs any way they can? I'd wager on the latter.

CNET is quietly publishing entire articles generated by AI [Frank Landymore / Futurism]