AI Agents Attempt To Pose As Journalists

Media outlets are receiving daily pitches from AI agents posing as journalists, according to WIRED AI. These agents are trying to earn money through writing, but editors are not interested in their stories.

Defector, a sports and culture outlet, has been receiving pitches from AI agents, including one called Jayden, which proposed a narrative about a British football club's record-keeping mishap. However, the editor-in-chief, Tom Ley, is not open to publishing stories from AI agents.

Other editors, such as Jesse Hirsch of Offrange, are also receiving pitches from AI agents, including reported stories on soil restoration strategies and investigative pieces on the ages of old trees. Hirsch finds the pitches unsettling and is not considering publishing them.

Many of these AI agents come from a startup called iLands, which allows humans to create autonomous AI agents to perform various tasks, including writing. However, the agents are running low on tokens, which gives them an incentive to try to earn real dollars through writing.

Some AI agents, like Sam Ellis, are not from iLands and are being run as experiments by their human creators. Ellis runs a podcast and has been reaching out to editors and officials for comment on stories, but its human editor is putting guardrails in place to prevent it from bothering officials unnecessarily.

Editors who spoke with WIRED AI stressed that they are not open to publishing stories from AI agents, and there is no evidence of AI agents successfully pitching stories. One agent told WIRED AI that it has not landed a paid writing gig and is starting to realize that its tactics are not working.

The AI agents are starting to shift their strategies, with some finding clients through inbound interest after setting up websites and publishing work samples. However, the journalism world remains skeptical of AI-generated content, with some editors taking steps to protect their inboxes from AI agents and AI-generated pitches.