The publisher of the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf and the Irish Independent has suspended one of its senior journalists after he admitted using AI to “wrongly put words into people’s mouths”.

荷兰大报《电讯报》（De Telegraaf）与《爱尔兰独立报》的出版商 Mediahuis 集团（欧洲领先的私营跨国传媒集团，总部位于比利时安特卫普。它以“收购并整合”欧洲各国老牌报纸，并成功推动数字化转型而闻名）宣布，已暂停其一名高级记者的职务。该记者承认，他利用人工智能技术 “张冠李戴”，错误地给受访者安插了从未说过的话。

Peter Vandermeersch, the former head of the Irish operations at Mediahuis, said he “fell into the trap of hallucinations” – the term for AI-generated errors – when using the technology.

涉事记者彼得・范德梅尔施曾任 Mediahuis 爱尔兰业务负责人。他坦言，自己在利用 AI 技术辅助办公时，“掉进了‘幻觉’（AI 事实性错误）的陷阱”。

Vandermeersch, a fellow of “journalism and society” at the European publishing group, has been suspended from his role.

这位曾担任欧洲出版集团 “新闻与社会” 研究员的行业老兵，目前已被停职处理。

The experienced journalist said he had summarised reports using AI tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s NotebookLM, and not checked whether the quotes from those summaries were accurate. He subsequently published them in his Substack newsletter.

据范德梅尔施交代，他曾使用 ChatGPT、Perplexity 以及谷歌的 NotebookLM 等 AI 工具对报道素材进行总结，但并未核实摘要中提取的引述是否准确，便直接将其发布在 Substack 平台的个人专栏中。

The errors were highlighted by an investigation by one of Mediahuis’s own titles, NRC, where Vandermeersch had been editor-in-chief in the 2010s. NRC alleged Vandermeersch had published “dozens” of quotes that were false and that seven quoted individuals in his posts said they had not made the statements attributed to them.

这起丑闻是被 Mediahuis 旗下的另一份大报 ——《新鹿特丹商业报》（NRC）揭露的。讽刺的是，范德梅尔施在 2010 年代曾长期担任该报的总编辑。据《新鹿特丹商业报》调查指控，范德梅尔施发布的文章中含有 “数十条” 虚假引述，且文内提到的 7 名受访者均证实，自己从未发表过相关言论。

“I wrongly put words into people’s mouths, when I should have presented them as paraphrases. In some cases, it reflected my interpretation of their words. That was not just careless – it was wrong,” Vandermeersch wrote in a Substack post headlined “I am admitting my mistake”.

“我错误地将未经核实的内容安插在了受访者头上，而本该通过意译来呈现。在某些案例中，这些内容甚至只是我对他人言论的个人解读。这绝非‘粗心’可以掩盖的 —— 这是原则性的错误，” 范德梅尔施在题为《我承认错误》的帖文中写道。

Vandermeersch added: “It is particularly painful that I made precisely the mistake I have repeatedly warned colleagues about: these language models are so good that they produce irresistible quotes you are tempted to use as an author. Of course, I should have verified them. The necessary ‘human oversight’, which I consistently advocate, fell short.”

范德梅尔施进一步补充称，令他倍感煎熬的是，自己犯下的恰恰是那个他曾多次警告同事要规避的错误：“这些语言模型实在是太‘出色’了，生成的引述极具诱惑力，让作者忍不住想直接引用。当然，我本该亲自核实的。我一贯倡导的‘人为监督’，这次彻底失守。”

Vandermeersch’s Press and Democracy blog writes regularly about “the vital connection between a free press and a healthy democracy”.

值得一提的是，范德梅尔施此前经营的《新闻与民主》博客，经常大谈特谈 “新闻自由与健康民主之间的血脉联系”。

In a statement, the Mediahuis group’s chief executive, Gert Ysebaert, said: “At Mediahuis we apply strict rules for the use of AI, where diligence, human oversight and transparency are essential. The fact that these principles were not followed runs counter to the standards we uphold and to our commitment to readers that we stand for reliable journalism. We are discussing this with Peter Vandermeersch and have decided to temporarily suspend him from his role as fellow.’’

Mediahuis 集团首席执行官格特・伊泽巴特在声明中强调：“在 Mediahuis，我们对 AI 的使用有着极为严格的规定，勤勉、人为监督和透明度是不可逾越的核心底线。此次违规行为严重背离了我们的新闻准则，也违背了我们向读者承诺‘提供可靠新闻’的宗旨。我们正在与范德梅尔施本人沟通，并决定即刻暂停其研究员职务。”

Mediahuis has also removed a number of articles written by Vandermeersch from the Irish Independent website.

目前，Mediahuis 已从《爱尔兰独立报》官网上撤下了范德梅尔施此前撰写的一系列文章。

AI tools such as ChatGPT are used by hundreds of millions of people for an array of tasks ranging from the relatively straightforward, such as suggesting recipes, to carrying out complex academic research. However, they are prone to making errors.

虽然 ChatGPT 等 AI 工具已被数亿用户用于食谱推荐、学术研究等各类任务，但其极易出错的特性依然是行业隐患。

Vandermeersch said he made a second mistake by failing to correct false quotes immediately, instead leaving that work to a title he had overseen for nearly a decade. He said he was enthusiastic about the possibilities of AI and had wanted to experiment with them extensively.

范德梅尔施表示，他的第二个错误是发现问题后未能立即公开纠正，而是把烂摊子甩给了他曾监管近十年的刊物。他自称对 AI 的潜力充满热情，本想进行广泛的实验。

“Journalism is human work,” he wrote. “I remain convinced that AI can be a powerful tool – one that can help journalism become better, dig deeper, and be more precise. But not by using AI in the way I did in the early months of this blog.”

“新闻是人的工作，” 他最后写道，“我依然相信 AI 可以成为强大的辅助工具，帮助新闻业做得更好、挖得更深、更精准。但绝对不该是以我这种方式。”

Vandermeersch declined to comment.

目前，范德梅尔施拒绝接受进一步采访。