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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteFuturism reported in September 2023 that some A.V. Club Bot articles reproduced or closely reworded IMDb movie descriptions. Its published examples included two exact matches and one close paraphrase. The finding is evidence of text overlap in those examples—not proof that every AI-assisted article copied IMDb, or that a court found wrongdoing.
What did Futurism find?
In an investigation published September 13, 2023, Futurism reporters Frank Landymore and Jon Christian compared movie descriptions in A.V. Club Bot listicles with IMDb entries. They presented three examples:
- Young Adam: Futurism showed an exact wording match between the IMDb description and text in an A.V. Club list of NC-17-rated films.
- Meg 2: The Trench: Futurism showed another exact match in an A.V. Club article listing August movie releases.
- Jessica Frost: Futurism described the A.V. Club wording as a close rewording of IMDb’s description.
Futurism said the August releases and NC-17 lists it examined offered no additional framing beyond the movie descriptions. These are comparisons reported by Futurism; the underlying article and IMDb pages were not independently archived or audited for this account. Read Futurism’s September 13, 2023 report.
What did the A.V. Club disclose?
The A.V. Club Bot articles carried this note, quoted by Futurism: “This article is based on data from IMDb. Text was compiled by an AI engine that was then reviewed and edited by the editorial staff.” The disclosure identifies IMDb data, AI compilation, and editorial review; it does not explain how much text editors changed or how the system selected or assembled the wording. TheWrap also reported seeing the note in its August 8, 2023 coverage of an A.V. Club Bot article: TheWrap’s report.
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How did G/O Media describe the AI system?
Futurism reported that a G/O Media spokesperson said the company licensed IMDb content and used AI to search the library and cull the list for the story. When asked for more detail, the spokesperson said: “our AI system leverages licensed data to recommend copy that is reviewed by editorial.” Futurism’s report does not identify the spokesperson or specify the technical model, prompts, or extent of human editing.
The company’s reported statement that it licensed IMDb content is not the same as public evidence of the license terms. The reporting cited here does not provide the agreement, establish what uses it permitted, or report a court or regulator decision about whether the use was lawful.
What did G/O Media say about criticism?
TheWrap reported that G/O Media editorial director Merrill Brown sent staff a memo after AI material appeared in July 2023. In the memo, Brown acknowledged the volume of feedback and wrote: “The best way to deal with industry chatter of this kind is to process it, dismiss the trivial and learn from what surfaces that’s thoughtful and of real value.” TheWrap’s August 8, 2023 report attributed that sentence to the memo.
What the examples do—and do not—establish
The distinction is between documented examples of overlap and broader conclusions that the reporting does not establish:
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| Question | What the reporting supports |
|---|---|
| Was there exact overlap? | Futurism published two side-by-side examples it described as exact matches: Young Adam and Meg 2: The Trench. |
| Was there similar wording without an exact match? | Futurism described the Jessica Frost example as a close rewording of IMDb’s description. |
| Did all A.V. Club Bot articles copy IMDb? | Not established. The cited investigation presented examples, not a comprehensive audit of every article or output. |
| Was a license violated or plagiarism legally established? | Not established by the reporting described here. The license terms and an adjudication are not provided. |
What is The A.V. Club’s stated AI policy now?
The A.V. Club’s current AI Policy page appears in search results with a statement that AI authorship is forbidden and published words are human-generated, while allowing administrative tools such as analytics dashboards and spelling or grammar checkers. The page was not directly accessible for inspection in the reporting reviewed here, so its wording should be treated as the site’s present stated policy as surfaced in search results—not as a verified history of when the policy took effect or how compliance is checked. The A.V. Club AI Policy page.
A current policy statement does not, by itself, resolve what happened in the 2023 articles or establish compliance then or now.
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