I encountered this while trying to look up more info about the recent death of an acquaintance. Dozens of AI generated obituaries, rife with incorrect information.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

“[The obituaries] had this real world impact where at least four people that I know of called [our] mutual friends, and thought that I had died with her, like we had a suicide pact or something,” says Vastag, who for a time was married to Mazur and remained close with her.

Beyond the dozen sites writing about Mazur, there is a sprawling network of high-ranking websites making money when family, friends, and acquaintances go searching for information about a deceased person.

Google has long struggled to contain obituary spam — for years, low-effort SEO-bait websites have simmered in the background and popped to the top of search results after an individual dies.

Others collect orders for flowers or gifts that don’t arrive in time, frustrating family and friends and causing headaches for local funeral homes, Gould Miller says.

Under the Thailand news category: “Man’s public poop at Thai car showroom creates online buzz.” The Trending section features articles like “Pedro Pascal’s surprising revelation steals show at 2024 Emmy Awards” and other pastiches of early 2010s internet clickbait.

Stories about deaths are often tagged as “trending” even when there’s no indication the individual was known outside of their community, and the articles appear to be aggregating or rewriting local news reports, social media posts, or actual obituaries from family.

The original article contains 1,667 words, the summary contains 218 words. Saved 87%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!