Thank you! After Benj Edwards and Kyle Orland's Ars Technica article they published using AI (while saying they didn't), and all the while their article was about an AI agent publishing a hit piece on Scott Shambaugh (matplotlib maintainer), I feel like I now assume journalists are using AI and things need to be fact-checked just as we do for our AI interactions.
I appreciate hearing about details like this and getting the source directly. I hope Kristina Armitage and Michael Kanyongolo from Quanta Magazine respond and you can update us!
Had no idea they even did anything. Was waiting for this. Nice to see some consequences and something resembling an attempt at integrity.
Now they just need to do something about all of the other writers! With the exception of the science lady, the security guy, and the british car guy, it's indistinguishable from the kind of PR-copy-paste blogspam 'coverage' you'd see from a place that will never have the reputation Ars used to.
I don’t think this is true, wherever I’ve traveled the opposite has held - the finest materials are exported which is sad for the locals. Right away Wool stuck out as an example from Peru. I naively thought that going to Peru would guarantee me the finest wool at the best prices. Anyway I’d like to see some data that backs up the claim that junk Swiss cheese is exported to the US market successfully.
If you believe that price equals quality, the fact that Switzerland is an order of magnitude richer than Peru - and considerably richer than the US - might make all the difference.
I think perhaps what is going on here is that the most commonly exported variety of cheese exported from Switzerland is Emmentaler, which matches the US taste profile (and has holes), but in Switzerland is considered a rather bland variety compared to e.g. Gruyere or Appenzeller. Maybe that got a bit exaggerated and it was labeled as "junk" cheese somewhere along the chain of communication.
If you sent it with something like gmail you should have acceptable proof right? Unless you deleted it from sent. Or can that be spoofed with a different date with an outside client or something?
Why is everyone jumping on the blame the victims bandwagon?! This is not the fault of users whether they were scientists publishing papers or the fault of the general public sharing links. This is absolutely 100% on Alphabet/Google.
The valley is small. Loyalty to your peers and friends will outlast the companies you stop at to work throughout your career. It’s all about the people you surround yourself with.
Loved this! I took my child to work even when it wasn’t the specific holiday so she could see what a real exec review looked like or how boring work could seem to be. The experiment is still running, so I can’t tell you the outcome... yet! ;)
I live on the west coast near San Luis Obispo, we get at least monthly rocket launches from so many vantage points I wouldn't bother traveling to Florida and dealing with all the crowds. Vandenberg Space Force Base is where the rockets launch on this side at the moment. You'll see SpaceX and ULA rockets.
Can you cite your sources on the no tech there [manufacturing]?
As someone who worked for Apple for nearly a decade on the engineering teams launching the iPhone and iPad, I beg to differ. While not the most "exciting" to those of us in Silicon Valley, Apple is a behemoth when it comes to factory. The engineering there is outstanding and even for those of us working higher up in the stack we didn't fully appreciate it until traveling oversees and intimately working within hw ops.
A lot of Apple's new product process is now public, but when the hardware moves from EVT to DVT it is the first time both SW Dev and HW Ops are working together in the factory and while still "owned" by Dev, it will be up to HW Ops to scale, optimize, and propose any key changes that we would not have considered or planned for - dealing with low yields. Once DVT transitions to PVT, Dev is under Ops direction - it's their world and we are there to serve them!
Before dismissing Apple's manufacturing design, engineering, and operations I would recommend learning a lot more if you are at all interested in this space or shipping your own products. Many companies in the valley building HW have adopted most of the principals Apple pioneered and refined in manufacturing...
The recruiter who reached out to me, two months ago, said as a disclaimer -- there is a possibility that even if I get an offer the joining might happen only in 8-12 months. Felt bizarre.
I appreciate hearing about details like this and getting the source directly. I hope Kristina Armitage and Michael Kanyongolo from Quanta Magazine respond and you can update us!
Scott's Blog on Hit Piece: https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on... Ars Editor Note: https://arstechnica.com/staff/2026/02/editors-note-retractio... Ars Retraction: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/02/after-a-routine-code-reje...