No, TAS did not publish an AI review.
Someone simply made a completely false claim on Reddit about this and most of the board over there ran with it. Here too, apparently. 🙄😒
In any case, whoever looked at it only saw the website version of the article. I imagine whoever maintains the website made this error, while anyone who has the print version (or digitally subscribes thru Zinio) knows that this bull**** is completely false.
So, I wrote Robert (Harley) and he wrote back. He was quite adamant that AI is OUT at TAS. The email states: "I can assure you that none of us uses AI to write in the magazine. In fact, we abhor the use of AI in writing. I wrote an editorial a few months ago, saying that we would never use AI to create text."
I already knew this, as I had written for TAS in the late 80s and 90s, know the magazine well and know Jonathan and had seen the editorial on using AI several months ago. Jonathan loves writing (he’s a creative guy), and had written detective novels before coming to TAS. It would be obvious to anyone who knew him that he hadn’t done any such thing.
Nonetheless, I wanted to simply observe how people would react to any old blind item, completely speculative with absolutely NO evidence to support it. Not one shred. Merely ’speculation,’ which people then repeat as though it is "fact." If I’d even thought of doing this when I was a detective, many decades ago, I would fully have expected my boss to fire me on the spot. What’s disturbing is how fast others are to show their ignorance by not asking a single question.
What Carl Sagan said in his 1995 book, "The Dumbing Down of America" has now come to pass. He foresaw the lack of critical thinking. He was correct and we’ve arrived at that point. I think we ’arrived’ in 2011.
It is disturbing how people to not mind embarrassing themselves with unsubstantiated gossip. All it takes is one idiot making a false claim, and people chime in, following like a herd of sheep. I’d be embarrassed to show my utter lack of critical thinking, but others seem not to mind displaying their ignorance.
This is akin to the Chinese fable named "Three Men And A Tiger."
