WASHINGTON, D.C. – Jan. 29 (DPI) – The Washington Post six weeks ago added a summary and supervision feature to its comment section, apparently all run by an Artificial Intelligence program, and readers have been so unimpressed that the volume – and quality – of comments has sharply declined, according to a review by Digital Press International.

The Post is the first of the Big Three news sites – the WSJ and the NYT being the other two – to introduce Artificial Intelligence to the management of its comment boards. The underlying reasons for explicit AI supervision of comment boards are not altogether clear, but cost-cutting has been an ongoing issue in news publishing, and leveraging technology with users has been a goal of both The Post and other legacy news publications.

The Post added two features sometime in November – the first was an AI-created summary of accumulated reader comments. Most of those summaries have so far been dry and predictable – “AI-sounding,” as one reader put it.

The Post also added four clickable options – “Clarifying,” “New to me,”
“Provocative,” and “Thoughtful” – of which a reader could choose only one, a new form of feedback

But readers – many of whom have faithfully and thoughtfully offered their views over the years – say they are pretty much disgusted with a machine supervising and evaluating their comments.

A Jan. 8 column by Karen Attiah described a conversation she had a “Black AI character” created by Meta’s AI program – and she came away put off by the character’s attempts to clumsily mimic Black cultural cues and Attiah’s own words.

Attiah’s column generated 1158 reader comments, including an appeal from a Post Editor seeking feedback about AI’s expanding role in social media. Readers mostly, though, responded by criticizing AI’s new role on the comment boards:

Hi! I’m with the Letters to the Editor team. Do you have any interesting experiences using AI? How do you feel about AI “characters” and their use on social media? Let us know by submitting a letter in the following link: https://wapo.st/letter

Are you an actual person? Or another AI?

Yes, right here in the WaPo comments section, as a matter of fact. It sucks! Please tell your overlords to kick the robot to the curb, return the comment section to its previous format and stop throttling speech.

When AIs pay me for my time, ask again.

Will the Post respond to complaints regarding the new comment system?

Get rid of this abominable comment scheme foisted upon those subscribers who still remain.

My experience is, I got along fine without AI.

AI is horrible, especially as used in the WaPo comments section. I noticed that no one bothers to take note that the intelligent commenters are disgusted with the new method and we’re leaving poste haste.

The WaPo AI pointedly ignores criticisms of the comment method and puts out drivel.
AI can be manipulated to do whatever the owner wants. And I’m not writing yet another letter that won’t be read.

I, and many many many more readers/commenters intensely dislike being forced into interacting with AI in the comments section.

I intensely dislike the AI overlord telling me to use 25 characters.

I hate the AI usage in this. Are YOU an AI bot?

This new comment format–including the AI-generated highlights–is a major step in the wrong direction for WaPo. You know your readers hate it. And as a general rule, I actively avoid using AI because it is egregiously flawed and unhelpful in almost every situation.


What AI really stands for. AI: Authentic Ignorance