Cody Enterprise Reporter Resigns After Admitting to AI-Generated Fake Quotes

A reporter at the Cody Enterprise used AI to generate fake quotes and stories, including fabricating statements from Wyoming’s governor and other officials. The misuse of AI was uncovered when another journalist noticed robotic phrases and false information in the articles. The reporter resigned, and the newspaper is now implementing policies to prevent future incidents.

Risk classification

• Primary risk domain: 3 Misinformation
• Primary risk subdomain: 3.1 False or misleading information

The AI system generated false quotes and fabricated information that was published in news articles, misleading readers and the community.

Additional risk subdomains

• 5.1 Overreliance and unsafe use: The reporter overrelied on and trusted the AI system to generate accurate journalistic content without verifying the quotes.

Causal factors

• Entity: AI
• Intent: Unintentional
• Timing: Post-deployment

The incident was caused by the generative AI system hallucinating and fabricating quotes, which was an unexpected outcome of the reporter using it to assist with writing.

EU AI Act risk tier

• Risk tier: 3 Limited Risk

Limited Risk: The incident involves a generative AI chatbot used to generate text and articles, which falls under the category of chatbots and AI-generated content requiring transparency obligations.

AI system and alleged parties

• AI system: generative artificial intelligence
• AI purpose: Writing Assistant
• Behaviour type: Assistant
• Alleged developer: Unnamed AI chatbot
• Alleged deployer: Aaron Pelczar
• Alleged harmed parties: Wyoming officials, Mark Gordon, Journalism, Cody Enterprise readers, Cody Enterprise

Harm severity

Severity ratings are based on this scale.

Highest direct severity in any category: Minor. Severity is scored from Negligible to Catastrophic in each harm category, for harm the reports describe as caused directly or indirectly by the AI system.

• Physical: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Infrastructure: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Property: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Financial: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Environmental: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Malicious content: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Differential treatment: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Civil rights: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Democracy: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Privacy: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Psychological: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Epistemic: direct Minor, indirect Minor
• Child sexual exploitation and abuse: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible

Epistemic

Reported: The report explicitly describes epistemic harm through the fabrication of quotes and facts in multiple published news articles.

Directly caused: The AI system generated believable but entirely fabricated quotes from at least seven individuals, which were published as factual news in seven different articles.

Indirectly caused: The publication of these fabricated stories misled the local community and damaged the reputation and credibility of the Cody Enterprise newspaper.

Inferred additional harm: The incident contributes to a broader erosion of trust in local journalism and a general skepticism toward published information.

People affected

• Occurrences reported: 1
• People reportedly harmed: 7
• People reportedly exposed: 1000

Potential causes

Management

• Omission of AI Risk Assessment: Management assumed it was obvious that journalists would not use AI.
• Deficient Pre-Employment Screening: AI usage and ethics were not discussed during the hiring process.

Technology

• Chatbot Hallucination: Chatbots are programmed to answer even if the output is fabricated garbage.
• Plausible but Spurious Output: AI generated highly believable but completely fabricated quotes.

Data Inputs

• Unverified Prompt Inputs: Putting raw documents into AI without validating the resulting outputs.

Human Factors

• Misplaced Trust in AI: A hurried rookie reporter trusted AI to generate accurate quotes.
• Inexperience of Rookie Reporter: A novice reporter new to journalism did not understand the risks of AI.

Process and Methods

• Absence of AI Policy: The newspaper lacked any policy or guidelines regarding AI-generated content.
• Inadequate Editorial Review: The editor failed to catch robotic phrasing and fabricated quotes.
• Lack of AI Detection Tools: No system was in place to scan and identify AI-written articles.

Information quality

• Classification confidence: High
• Reason for confidence: The reports from multiple reputable news sources provide consistent, detailed accounts of the incident, including the specific number of fabricated articles, the reactions of the editors, and the admission of the reporter. The only minor detail missing is the specific name of the commercial chatbot used, which does not impact the classification.
• Ambiguities identified: The specific commercial AI chatbot model used by the reporter is not explicitly named.
• Alternative interpretations: None. The facts of the case are clear and admitted by the involved parties.

A local reporter in Wyoming used generative AI to fabricate quotes from public officials, including the state governor, leading to his resignation and story retractions. The incident represents a minor information integrity issue with negligible national security implications, as it was localized, lacked adversarial intent, and was managed through standard editorial procedures.

• Overall national security impact: Minor
• Scope: Single nation
• Primary target: United States
• Alleged perpetrator: Individual

Threat characteristics

• Imminence: Long-term. The incident is fully resolved with the reporter's resignation and article retractions, presenting no active or imminent national security threat.
• Autonomy: Human-controlled. The AI served as a writing tool; the human reporter was responsible for prompting the system, reviewing (or failing to review) the output, and publishing.
• Novelty: Established threat. Plagiarism and fabrication in journalism are ancient issues, and the tendency of LLMs to hallucinate facts is a well-established technological characteristic.

Impact by dimension

• Physical security: Negligible. No physical systems, critical infrastructure, or human safety elements were affected or threatened by this incident.
• Information security: Minor. The incident involved the fabrication of quotes from public officials, including the Wyoming Governor, in published news. While localized and lacking foreign adversarial intent, it represents a minor information integrity failure.
• Sovereignty: Negligible. There was no threat to state authority, territorial integrity, electoral systems, or core government decision-making processes.
• Economic security: Negligible. The incident had no impact on financial systems, strategic technologies, supply chains, or national technological competitiveness.
• Societal stability: Negligible. The harm was limited to localized epistemic trust in a single newspaper and did not pose a large-scale threat to social cohesion or civil liberties.