Marketing consultant loses job because he doesn't understand generative AI

[bnew]

Marketing consultant loses job because he doesn't understand generative AI

A marketing consultant lost his job after using ChatGPT to "research" historical film reviews for a movie trailer. The incident highlights a widespread misunderstanding of how generative AI works.

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AI in practice

Aug 26, 2024

Marketing consultant loses job because he doesn't understand generative AI​

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Matthias Bastian



Online journalist Matthias is the co-founder and publisher of THE DECODER. He believes that artificial intelligence will fundamentally change the relationship between humans and computers.

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A marketing consultant lost his job after using ChatGPT to "research" historical film reviews for a movie trailer. The incident highlights a widespread misunderstanding of how generative AI works.

According to Deadline, marketing consultant Eddie Egan has been fired for using an AI tool such as ChatGPT to generate review quotes for a trailer for the movie "Megalopolis". The trailer included highly critical quotes about director Francis Ford Coppola's previous work that turned out to be AI-generated fabrications.

Egan's goal was to argue that "Megalopolis," like Coppola's previous films, would initially face harsh criticism but ultimately be recognized as a masterpiece. The trailer quoted renowned film critics such as Pauline Kael of The New Yorker and Andrew Sarris of The Village Voice, who supposedly called classics like "The Godfather" a "sloppy, self-indulgent movie" and "Apocalypse Now" an "epic piece of trash."


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In reality, these scathing reviews never happened. On the contrary, the critics praised these films, as reported by Vulture magazine. As a result, production company Lionsgate apologized for the mistake, removed the trailer and terminated Egan's contract.

AI models generate words, not facts​

This case demonstrates how easy it is to be misled by ChatGPT and similar systems if you don't understand their underlying mechanisms. The Large Language Models (LLMs) powering these tools generate words based on probabilities, influenced by the user's prompt. The resulting sentences can be either accurate or soft bullshyt - these models have no built-in fact-checking capabilities. If you ask for critical reviews, it'll generate some.

Others have fallen for the chatbots' reasoned-sounding sentences: Attorney Steven A. Schwartz initially used ChatGPT for research, unaware that the system could generate false content. In another case, attorneys used ChatGPT to find and cite supposed reference cases that turned out to be AI inventions.

These examples show that many people do not yet understand how generative AI works, and that its results should not be used unchecked. Even OpenAI itself had a factual generation error in its first SearchGPT demo.

 

[bnew]

‘Megalopolis’ Cuts Ties With Marketing Consultant Behind Trailer Debacle; Fabricated Critic Quotes Were Generated By AI

'Megalopolis' has parted ways with marketing consultant Eddie Egan following the recent trailer debacle, Deadline has confirmed.

deadline.com

‘Megalopolis’ Cuts Ties With Marketing Consultant Behind Trailer Debacle; Fabricated Critic Quotes Were Generated By AI​

By Matt Grobar
Senior Film Reporter

August 23, 2024 1:48pm

Marketing consultant Eddie Egan Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Following its recent debacle involving fabricated trailer quotes, Lionsgate‘s Francis Ford Coppola epic Megalopolis has cut ties with marketing consultant Eddie Egan, sources have confirmed to Deadline.

Lionsgate declined comment. But we hear that the quotes featured in yesterday’s trailer, revealed by Vulture to be fake, were found to have been generated by AI following an investigation. The materials fell under the purview of Egan, who prior to his work as an independent consultant, held executive posts at STXfilm and assorted major studios.

In the immediate aftermath of the trailer snafu, some questioned whether the fake quotes were part of a a marketing ploy purposefully designed to keep the film in the headlines. But we’re told this couldn’t be further from the truth. Rather, the situation should be looked at as a cautionary tale, as neither Egan nor Lionsgate was out to intentionally fabricate quotes. Mistakes were simply made in the vetting of marketing materials.

If Egan’s involvement with Lionsgate’s Megalopolis campaign is over, whether he’ll be back in business with the studio again in the future is not yet clear.

It was early Wednesday morning that Lionsgate debuted its second trailer for Megalopolis, featuring a slew of past “criticisms” of Coppola’s now-iconic works by such famed critics as The New Yorker’s Pauline Kael and Village Voice’s Andrew Sarris. In reference to The Godfather, for example, Kael was quoted as calling the film “diminished by its artsiness,” with Sarris referring to it as a “sloppy self-indulgent movie.”

The intention was to argue that while Megalopolis was polarizing from the time of its first screening pre-Cannes — as many of the filmmaker’s works have been — the film will stand the test of time as another Coppola classic. While it’s not clear who exactly gathered the AI quotes that wound up in the trailer, other critics cited included Roger Ebert, Vincent Canby, John Simon, Stanley Kauffmann, and Rex Reed.

When word began to spread that the quotes featured in the trailer were fabricated, Lionsgate made the unorthodox move of taking the trailer down from the web and issuing an apology. “Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for Megalopolis,” said a spokesperson for the studio. “We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process. We screwed up. We are sorry.”

The trailer debacle hasn’t been the only controversy Megalopolis has weathered en route to theaters, as Variety last month published a report on supposed unprofessional behavior from Coppola, along with a video that appeared to depict the director kissing extras on set. A week later, one of the women featured in the video, Rayna Menz, came forward to dispute our sister trade’s account of events.

Self-financed by Coppola at a budget north of $100M, Megalopolis is a Roman epic set in an imagined Modern America, which stars Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel and many more. Marking Coppola’s first feature since 2011’s Twixt, the film hits U.S. theaters on September 27.

 

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Spoiler: full text

1/1
The fake quotes from the ‘MEGALOPOLIS’ trailer were AI-generated.

Lionsgate has fired the marketing consultant that was responsible.

(Source: ‘Megalopolis’ Trailer’s Fake Critic Quotes Were AI-Generated, Lionsgate Drops Marketing Consultant Responsible For Snafu)


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Spoiler: larger images

 

[3rdWorld]

I dont see what the big deal is

 

[Flexington]

Wait...did he think ChatGPT was going to research and pull real quotes for movies based on the request he typed? And then put them in a promo trailer?