Fabrications used to be a mortal sin in journalism. The New York Times’ own Jayson Blair left the paper in 2003 under a dark cloud of scandal after it was revealed he had regularly invented details for his reporting. The flagrant fabrications of Stephen Glass at The New Republic in the late 1990s were sufficiently scandalous enough to merit a Vanity Fair feature and a Hollywood film adaptation. But the minimizing treatment of Stevis-Gridneff’s fake Poilievre quote suggests that in the AI era, fabrication may no longer be a career-ending transgression—at least, not for everyone.

We hold AI content to the same standards — except, it’s so easy not to we don’t reeeeely bother about mistakes.