2023-05-16 15:22:35
The story begins on Thursday, May 4, when a certain Adriana Acosta-Cortez sends an email to the opinion department of theIrish Times, the leading Irish daily. Presenting herself as an Ecuadorian living in Dublin for eight years, she offers a text entitled: “We need to talk about fake tans. In this column, she explains that the fashion, very widespread in Ireland among women, to apply self-tanning creams would be to “cultural appropriation” and an “fetishization of high melanin levels in pigmented people”.
Four days later, the new head of the “opinion” department, who has just taken up her post, responds positively by email, welcoming a text « original », “thought-provoking”. But she suggests some modifications and asks for a photo and a short biography of the author. “Adriana Acosta-Cortez” runs, makes the necessary minor edits, and comes as “healthcare administrator, 29, mum to a cat, from North Dublin”. She also sends what is supposed to be a photo of herself, showing a woman with a round face and dyed blue hair.
Thursday, May 11, the column is published and is widely read. Two radio stations even contact the daily to obtain the contact details of “Adriana” and have her discuss the subject. To add to the confusion, she replies by sending the telephone number… of a clown who offers his services in Ireland.
“Deliberate and coordinated trickery”
“Adriana Acosta-Cortez” did not exist. “She” didn’t write the article either. The person behind the deception, whose identity remains unknown, was content to use an artificial intelligence (AI) program to create this text. After a little over twenty-four hours, theIrish Times eventually realized this and removed the article from its website.
Two days later, on Sunday May 14, its editor, Ruadhan Mac Cormaic, published a message of apology. “Thursday we made a big mistake. (…) Less than twenty-four hours after its publication online, theIrish Times discovered that this item may not be real (…). It appears that the article and accompanying photo byline were produced, at least in part, by AI technology. It was a hoax. The person we corresponded with was not who she said she was. We were the victims of a deliberate and coordinated deception. »
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