Microsoft has pulled an AI-written travel guide, which told tourists to visit the Ottawa Food Bank if they are hungry
- Microsoft has pulled an AI-written travel article that recommended the Ottawa Food Bank as a tourist attraction for the city.
- "Consider going into it on an empty stomach," wrote the article on the food bank.
Microsoft has pulled an AI-generated guide titled "Headed to Ottawa? Here's what you shouldn't miss!" that recommended the city's food bank as a top tourist attraction.
The now-deleted article — which was previously published on Microsoft Start — suggested attractions like "The Winterlude Festival, National War Memorial, and Ottawa Food Bank, and many more."
Microsoft says its editorial content on Microsoft Start — formerly known as MSN — is put together by "algorithms" and "human oversight."
The article was published Tuesday, according to a screenshot of the article shared by the Verge. An Insider review on Friday showed a message saying, "This page no longer exists."
The Ottawa Food Bank was the third attraction on the list and included a caption that said, "Life is already difficult enough. Consider going into it on an empty stomach."
The article also recommended the world's "Largest Naturallyfrozen Ice Rink" and the "National War Memorial" and provided a short description of each.
"This article has been removed, and we are investigating how it made it through our review process," Jeff Jones, Microsoft's senior director of communications, told the Verge on Thursday.
Microsoft laid off workers at its MSN editorial team in 2020 to replace them with AI, Insider previously reported.
The bizarre article was first shared by tech critic Paris Marx, who posted on X on Thursday: "Microsoft is really hitting it out of the park with its AI-generated travel stories!"
And it's not the first time a company using AI-generated content has landed in hot water.
Tech news site CNET had to issue corrections due to basic math errors in articles that were written by AI. One such error stated that earnings from depositing $10,000 in a 3% interest savings account were $10,300 instead of $300.
In July, employees at Gizmodo criticized company executives after the outlet published AI-written articles riddled with errors — like failing to list the "Star Wars" movies in chronological order.
Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment from Insider.