The New York Times Is Cracking Down on AI Use by Freelancers After a Series of Embarrassing Incidents

[madmax]

The New York Times has sent a reminder to freelance contributors warning them against using artificial intelligence tools in their work, following what has been described as a string of AI-related controversies at the paper. The warning made clear that freelancers must not submit any material that contains content generated, modified, or enhanced by generative AI tools, or that has been input into such tools at any stage of the writing process. The paper specified that AI may only be used for high-level brainstorming, while any tool used to create, draft, guide, clean up, edit, improve, or rephrase writing is strictly prohibited. The email explicitly named ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity as forbidden chatbots, alongside AI-powered search products and image generators including Adobe Firefly, DALL-E, and Midjourney.

The crackdown comes at a moment of heightened scrutiny over the paper's handling of AI-related editorial failures. In March, a contributor to the paper's Modern Love column was accused of using AI to generate an emotional personal essay, with the writer later confirming she had used chatbots to help conceptualize and edit the piece. In April, the paper cut ties with a freelancer who admitted using AI to produce a book review later found to be riddled with plagiarism. Most recently, a substantial correction revealed that an article by the NYT's Canada bureau chief contained an AI-fabricated quote that had been published as a direct attribution to Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, remaining uncorrected for weeks before the paper acknowledged the reporter should have verified what the AI tool returned.

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NYT named Claude specifically

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in the banned tools list