Investing.com, a prominent financial news website, has been scrutinized for allegedly employing artificial intelligence (AI) to produce articles that closely resemble content published by its competitors. This practice has raised concerns about the ethics and originality of the news industry, with competitors voicing their displeasure over what they perceive as an erosion of their competitive edge.
AI-generated articles mirroring competitor content
Investing.com, owned by Joffre Capital and headquartered in Tel Aviv, has gained significant notoriety for its role as a financial information hub. While the site provides a blend of market data, investment insights, and financial trends, it has increasingly relied on AI to generate news stories. These AI-generated articles have raised eyebrows due to their striking similarities to content published by other financial news outlets.
In a recent example, the blog CryptoNewsLand reported a resurgence in the price and investor activity of the XRP token. Within hours, Investing.com released a strikingly similar article, utilizing nine identical statistics and the same dataset from Santiment. Both articles comprised four paragraphs, leaving many questioning the originality of the content.
A similar incident occurred when long-running financial news site The Motley Fool published a piece comparing the stock performance of Microsoft and Google. Shortly thereafter, Investing.com published an article that mirrored The Motley Fool’s points about the strengths and weaknesses of these tech giants in the AI and gaming sectors. This pattern suggests that Investing.com’s AI is replicating the ideas and analysis of its competitors with remarkable accuracy.
In another instance, Barcelona-based currency and crypto news site FXStreet published a story about Grayscale Investments’ legal victory against the Securities and Exchange Commission. Investing.com followed suit with its article, citing the exact same sources, including tweets from YouTuber Crypto Rover, the Twitter account @nsquaredcrypto, and analysts at Berenberg. This practice not only undermines the originality of content but also diminishes the competitive edge of the news outlets affected.
Disclosure of AI assistance but no attribution
Investing.com has, to its credit, disclosed that its articles are generated with the assistance of AI technology, and it claims to have editorial oversight. However, what sets them apart is the absence of credit or attribution to the sources, unlike news aggregators, who typically acknowledge their sources. This omission has raised ethical concerns in the journalism community.
Pere Monguió, the head of content at FXStreet, expressed his concerns, noting that they had noticed Investing.com publishing articles strikingly similar to theirs. FXStreet, known for its team of 60 analysts monitoring global currency developments, found that AI-generated content significantly threatened its competitive position.
Monguió emphasized, “Using AI to rewrite exclusive content from competitors threatens journalism and original content creation. This is one of the multiple examples we have found with simple comparisons of their content to several of our articles and many other media outlets in the industry. This is particularly damaging for us as FXStreet is one of Investing.com’s main competitors.”
Other competitors, while displeased, expressed less concern, arguing that the quality of Investing.com’s AI-generated pieces was inferior to their original content. Lawrence Greenberg, Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer at The Motley Fool, acknowledged the existence of content plagiarism in the industry and suggested that AI might be copying good content and rendering it mediocre.
Implications for the news industry
Investing.com’s use of AI to replicate competitor content has ignited a discussion within the news industry regarding the ethics of such practices. While AI technology undoubtedly offers efficiency and automation, it also raises questions about the need for originality, integrity, and intellectual property protection.
The concerns extend beyond the immediate competitors to the broader journalism landscape. AI-generated content that closely resembles human-authored articles has the potential to undermine trust in news sources and erode the value of independent journalism.
Investing.com’s utilization of AI to create articles resembling those of its competitors has sparked controversy within the financial news sector. While the website discloses its AI assistance, the absence of attribution to sources has raised ethical concerns. Competitors worry about the impact on their competitive edge, while others question the broader implications for journalism and the credibility of news sources. The incident is a stark reminder of AI’s evolving challenges and ethical dilemmas in the news industry.
