Yesterday, former Hopkinton resident Ann Dragsbaek shared an article from TheTravel.com identifying Hopkinton as one of the most peaceful towns in the country. In fact, according to their list, which included other towns in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Arizona, Hopkinton ranked #1.
The post garnered several positive comments and a featured article in the Hopkinton Independent. It appeared to be another “feather in our cap” for the town that was recently ranked #1 in the Best School Districts in Massachusetts by Niche.
But a closer look at the content of this article reveals that it was written almost entirely by artificial intelligence, according to both CopyLeaks and GPTZero, two sites that educators rely on heavily to detect AI-written content.
As artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated each day, it is increasingly difficult to differentiate news articles and web pages that are written by humans versus those that are created by machines. But AI often leaves watermarks that help reveal its true origin.
The first is the website itself. Have you ever heard of TheTravel.com? While it has an important sounding name, it certainly is not as well known as TripAdvisor, Travel and Leisure, or other reputable websites that have a established brands. A visit to TheTravel.com reveals that it is primarily a collection of top-X list articles, which are very useful for search engines but less so for humans.
The second is the author. Aunindita Bhatia claims to live in India, and to have written 1,108 articles. While the article does not state that she has visited Hopkinton, it is unlikely that she would be so well-traveled given her apparent age. Additionally, the link to her personal website is broken.
Third, the writing style of the article is an indicator. It lacks personal anecdotes and opinions. It includes high level facts, such as crime statistics and other data that is easy to glean from various websites, such as census.gov and Wikipedia. Artificial Intelligence websites like ChatGPT rely on Large Language Models (LLM), which are designed to understand, generate and interact with human language. They are trained using a technique called “deep learning”, which involves scouring the web for various data sources and storing them. But they are only as good as the data they discover, and often do not prioritize their results appropriately.
Which leads to the fourth, and most obvious giveaway. The summary of Hopkinton is ridiculous.
The town of Hopkinton, located in Massachusetts, gives a great deal of consideration to the physical and mental health of its residents. In addition, Hopkinton provides confidential psychological exams and conducts workshops centered on healthy living and maintaining personal well-being.
While Hopkinton may in fact provide “confidential psychological exams”, this is hardly common knowledge, nor is it the first thing most travelers would want to learn about our town. It is likely that the LLM was trained on the Hopkinton Public Schools CPR Final Report 2016, which is why it thinks Hopkinton gives a “great deal of consideration to mental health”. The article also provided a factoid about our “brand-new” public library, likely gleaned from Wikipedia, though it appears the AI does not realize something built in 2017 is objectively no longer “brand-new”.
Notably, the article fails to mention Hopkinton’s special relationship with the Boston Marathon, which is arguably what we are best known for. Apparently to AI, the marathon is just one sporting event of many.
As we navigate through an increasingly digital world, where AI-generated content is becoming more prevalent, it’s crucial for readers to maintain a healthy skepticism and for writers to uphold standards of authenticity and accuracy. This incident is a reminder for all of us to stay vigilant and informed, cherishing the human touch that truly brings stories and places to life.
(this last paragraph was written by ChatGPT)
The In”dependent” should be embarrassed. At the very least they are an embarrassment.
But surely the article must be true. The Indy wouldn’t be naive enough to fall for an article written by a bot, would they? Besides, the same article said that the town of South Park was ranked #10. Everyone knows South Park is real. That famous guy Homer Simpson lives there. DUUUH! 🙂