On Monday, March 3, the Los Angeles Times launched "Insights," a tool designed to analyze content from the "Voices" section, which features opinion articles, editorials, and other pieces providing viewpoints on various topics. The American newspaper stated that the aim of this AI tool was to "identify where expressed opinions fall on the political spectrum" and to present "different perspectives on the subject from various sources."
However, it encountered a significant issue less than 24 hours after its launch. The AI generated arguments in favor of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in an article, according to CNN. The article, published on February 25 by columnist Gustavo Arellano, emphasized that the city of Anaheim, California, should not forget the KKK's role in its past while labeling the white supremacist group as a "stain on a place that loves to celebrate the positive."
Insights presented a more lenient view of the KKK, referring to it as a "persistent white culture" reacting to societal movements rather than an explicitly hate-driven entity. These comments, which seemed to downplay the group's racist history, have since been removed from the article. Despite this, Gustavo Arellano responded by asserting that "the AI got it right," as residents of Orange County have "downplayed the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s by calling it anti-racist" on X. This incident follows the owner's announcement of plans to incorporate AI tools to attract a younger and conservative audience after experiencing reader loss and significant layoffs.
