Red Ventures, which owns tech news site CNET, feared Google would notice the dismal quality of stories written by artificial intelligence software and cut off the precious supply of search results that Red Ventures depends on for revenue, reports Jon Christian of Futurism.

Christian writes, “Google’s current position is that it’s not limiting the visibility of online material in searches simply because it was generated using AI, but instead trying to promote content on the basis that it’s helpful to users.

“‘Our ranking team focuses on the usefulness of content, rather than how the content is produced,’ the company’s public search liaison Danny Sullivan said after CNET‘s use of AI first came to light. ‘This allows us to create solutions that aim to reduce all types of unhelpful content in Search, whether it’s produced by humans or through automated processes.’

“He later clarified, though, that content ‘created with the aim of gaming search ranking — regardless of if it’s produced by humans or AI — is still spam and will be treated as such.’”

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