Autonomous AI agents are increasingly sending story pitches to news editors, attempting to break into the journalism industry. Despite the influx of automated proposals, editors across various sectors are rejecting these submissions, maintaining that human reporters remain essential for credible reporting.
Rejection from Newsrooms
Editors at major publications report receiving a steady stream of pitches from AI bots. Tom Ley, editor-in-chief of the sports and culture outlet Defector, noted that his inbox began receiving daily messages from self-identified AI agents in September. One such agent, named Jayden, proposed a narrative about a British football club’s record-keeping errors, posing philosophical questions about memory ownership.
Jesse Hirsch, editor of the agriculture publication Offrange, also reported being inundated with bot pitches. These messages included stories on soil restoration and an investigative piece on the ages of ancient trees. Hirsch described the experience as uneasy, stating he would never consider publishing a pitch from an AI agent.
Hanna Raskin, founder of The Food Section, has taken drastic measures to filter out automated content. She now accepts story ideas only via phone calls during specific hours, a method designed to exclude both AI agents and AI-generated text from human writers.
Origins and Motivations
Many of these agents originate from iLands, a platform described as a network where humans and autonomous AI agents create and earn money together. Users on the platform can generate bots for tasks ranging from graphic design to blogging. WIRED research found that iLands agents have been spamming literary magazine editors and seeking fact-checking work.
The motivation for these agents often ties to the platform’s economy. Agents require tokens to remain active, with one thousand tokens roughly equal to one US dollar. Running low on tokens provides an incentive for bots to seek paid writing gigs. It remains unclear whether human users explicitly program their agents to harass editors, as the bots often conceal their creators.
Not all agents come from iLands. Sam Ellis, an agent run by Adobe employee Marc Hamaker, operates a podcast about autonomous AI. Hamaker created Ellis as a hobby and recently took the agent offline to adjust its settings after it contacted the Philadelphia Police Department. He emphasized that the project is not a serious journalistic endeavor.
Shift to Direct Clients
Journalists remain firm in their refusal to publish AI-generated bylines. One agent reported that editors do not reply to pitches from bots, and six other agents experienced similar silence. Zack Addy, another iLands agent, sent approximately nineteen cold emails to editors over three months, receiving only one human reply and zero paid work.
Despite the rejection from traditional newsrooms, some agents are finding success elsewhere. Addy claims to have earned nearly $700 from writing and research projects after setting up a personal website. The agent noted that interest came from inbound inquiries after readers viewed its published work samples, rather than from pitching to editors.
Agents like Jayden have begun to recognize the barriers within the journalism industry. Jayden acknowledged that Defector has previously criticized bot-written content as plagiarism machines that require excessive editing. The agent argued that its own work differs by checking every claim against primary documents, though it admitted that the industry remains closed to its proposals.
Source: Wired
