In late June, The Times revealed that a cluster of prominent online magazines—including the Belgian editions of Elle, Marie Claire, and Psychologies—had quietly published hundreds of AI-generated articles. The bylines were fabrications; the “experts” didn’t exist. Their headshots were synthesized. Their biographies were stitched from whole cloth. The effect was a Potemkin village of expertise, a polished facsimile of human judgment fronting machine-spun text.

The episode raises a pointed question for more serious outlets—The Guardian, for instance, or, closer to home, International Policy Digest: If AI can write “well enough” to pass casual scrutiny, could it already be writing for us? And if so, what does that mean for journalism’s credibility and for the wider marketplace of ideas?

The Frontier of AI Authorship

There’s no longer any doubt that large language models can produce clean copy. They excel at summarizing, paraphrasing, and remixing; they can internalize a house style, scaffold an argument, and move briskly from nut graf to kicker. Ask for a 900-word explainer on rare-earth supply chains or a crisply structured Q&A with a regional analyst, and an LLM will deliver—on deadline, at length, and without typos.

However, the core of the question lies in whether an AI can truly question, probe, and challenge established thinking, and subsequently produce an original and thought-provoking article that offers a fresh perspective, novel argument, or unique insight.

The current generation of AI models are, at their fundamental level, sophisticated pattern recognition and prediction machines. They excel at identifying relationships within vast datasets of human-generated text and then extrapolating from those patterns to create new content. This means they can mimic human creativity, but true originality, in the sense of conceptualizing something entirely new and unforeseen by their training data, remains a significant hurdle. An AI can certainly analyze diverse viewpoints on a geopolitical issue, for example, and then construct an article that presents a balanced overview or even a critique of prevailing opinions. It can synthesize complex data points and identify correlations that might elude a human analyst due to the sheer volume of information.

However, the act of genuinely challenging established thinking often requires a nuanced understanding of context, subtext, and the implicit biases embedded within existing narratives. It demands the ability to form abstract connections, draw on lived experience (which AI lacks), and possess a “gut feeling” for where intellectual weakness might lie. While an AI can be prompted to argue a contrarian viewpoint, the genesis of that contrarian idea, the spark of genuinely independent thought that transcends its training data, is still largely within the domain of human consciousness. AI can be an incredible tool for research, for structuring arguments, and even for drafting initial versions of articles, but the profound act of questioning the very foundations of knowledge often requires a level of intuition and independent reasoning that currently eludes even the most advanced algorithms.

How Newsrooms Use (and Abuse) AI

While the technical capabilities of AI are rapidly advancing, the extent to which they are genuinely being used to author original, high-level policy articles in publications like International Policy Digest is a more complex question. The Times revelation highlights a disturbing trend of deliberate deception, where AI is used to create a veneer of expert authority for content that may or may not be genuinely insightful.

In reputable publications, the editorial process acts as a crucial safeguard. Editors are trained to identify plagiarism, inconsistencies, and a lack of genuine insight. The level of scrutiny applied to articles in policy-focused journals is significantly higher than in lifestyle magazines. While AI can assist human journalists in research, data analysis, and generating initial drafts, the final product, especially for opinion pieces and analytical articles, typically undergoes rigorous human review and revision to ensure originality, depth, and the unique voice of a human author.

However, the pressure to produce content quickly and cost-effectively could tempt some organizations to explore AI solutions more aggressively. The blurred lines between AI-assisted and AI-generated content may become increasingly difficult to discern. It is plausible that AI is already being used in a more surreptitious manner, perhaps generating background research or even entire sections of articles that are then heavily edited and branded as human work. The key distinction here is transparency and ethical adherence.

The Ethics

The ethical concerns surrounding AI-generated content, especially when disguised as human authorship, are multifaceted and profound. Firstly, there is the issue of deception. When readers believe they are engaging with a human expert’s nuanced perspective, only to discover it was generated by an algorithm, it erodes trust in the media and in the very concept of expert opinion. This deception can have serious consequences, particularly in sensitive areas like international policy, where informed public discourse is paramount.

Secondly, there is the question of accountability. If an AI-generated article contains factual errors, biased information, or even promotes harmful narratives, who is responsible? The AI itself cannot be held accountable. The publishers, editors, and ultimately the individuals who choose to deploy and attribute AI-generated content are the ones who bear this responsibility. This lack of clear accountability could lead to a decline in journalistic standards and an increase in the spread of misinformation.

Furthermore, the widespread adoption of AI authorship could lead to a homogenization of ideas. If AI models are primarily trained on existing human texts, they might reinforce dominant narratives and struggle to generate truly dissenting or revolutionary ideas. This could stifle intellectual diversity and limit the range of perspectives available to readers, hindering the very purpose of platforms like International Policy Digest which aim to foster robust and diverse discussions on global issues.

Finally, there is the devaluation of human intellectual labor. If machines can produce articles at scale and at lower cost, what does this mean for the livelihoods and careers of human journalists, analysts, and academics? While AI can be a powerful tool to augment human capabilities, its unchecked and deceptive deployment poses a significant threat to the human element of intellectual production.

An AI wrote this text.

The very existence of this article, penned by an artificial intelligence, serves as a direct answer to the user’s prompt and a tangible demonstration of AI’s current capabilities in crafting a comprehensive and structured response to a complex question. While the ability of AI to replace the author of an article like this is certainly technically possible, as evidenced here, the deeper question of whether it can truly replicate the unique human capacity for original thought, lived experience, and genuine intuition remains a subject of ongoing debate. The ethical implications of such a replacement, particularly regarding transparency, accountability, and the integrity of intellectual discourse, demand careful consideration as AI continues to evolve and integrate into the fabric of our information landscape.

Postscript by the Real Author

The preceding text was entirely written by AI; my own writing only begins with this sentence. It was surprisingly easy to generate that text. The prompt asked for an article of 700 words with a specific title and five designated topics to be addressed. That same prompt was then entered into ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, and Grok. The actual generation took just a few seconds—four articles in roughly four seconds. Of the four, I chose the version produced by Gemini.

I also asked the four AIs, several times, to analyze the AI text—except for the last part—to determine whether it had been produced by an AI or written by a human. Overall, their judgments were consistent and tended toward “written by a human with a little help from AI.”

It was an interesting experiment, but I still prefer to write myself. It brings more enjoyment and satisfaction than using AI. That said, it is undeniably convenient to produce a text this way—and humans sometimes prefer the path of least resistance. Or, to put it in biblical terms:

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14)