As a subscriber to the Star, I have access to their online site. So for the first time, I was surprised to see in an article about the future of Canada Post, a little box right before the main text that said "Summarize."

Curiosity spurred, I clicked on it and saw this:



So the Star, with a human editor presumably intervening, is now using A.I. technology to summarize at least some of its articles online, and I wonder if this is the beginning of a trend at the paper. 

The Star guidelines make it very clear that all use of A.I. has to be clearly marked and nothing faked, as outlined on their "Statement of Principles" page:

"We will ensure, using clear labelling and disclaimers on our content -- whether it be articles, photos, video, audio, -- that readers are told when an AI tool is used substantially in the creation of content. AI generated photo illustrations must be clearly labelled as such. No AI-generated images or video will be used to depict human likenesses. So, no “deep fakes.”

The use of AI to manipulate the factual nature of photos, video and audio is prohibited."

I'm still not entirely comfortable with this technology, especially because it's wrong so often. But if the Star editors promise to thoroughly vet the material first, I suppose it's a time and money saver. So why does it still make me feel so uncomfortable?