A.I. Is Now Doing the Menial Journalism Jobs I Used to Do

In February, BuzzFeed's leadership announced that the company's storied quiz operation was pivoting to A.I. OpenAI's generative language tool ChatGPT has proven to be effective at regurgitating hackneyed cultural motifs back at its users, which makes it perfect for the platitudinal terrain of BuzzFeed quizzes. The company has gone all-in on the new revolution by adopting a text synthesis program modeled on ChatGPT's technology, tiling the website with uncanny questionnaires--all scented with the trademark unspecificity of machine learning--and published under the byline "Buzzy the Robot." Buzzy is listed on the masthead as an A.I. Creative Assistant, and I suspect that he's not a member of the union. "What If You Were A Disney Princess? This Quiz Will Answer That Question," reads one of the characteristically mangled headlines written by Buzzy.