Technology

joint statement by GMG Union and Onion Union:

The Onion and GMG Unions are saddened to report that our colleagues at Gizmodo Español, a site that once housed original, quality Spanish-language reporting, have been replaced en masse by an AI translation service. Instead of relying on the talented journalists at Gizmodo Español, G/O Media has enacted an automation that takes English-language Gizmodo articles, translates them poorly into Spanish, and posts them on Gizmodo Español almost immediately, with no Spanish-language editing. We offer our deepest sympathies to the Gizmodo Español team and share in their frustration as jobs for working journalists continue to disappear worldwide. The Gizmodo Español team comprised of four full-time employees—one editor and three writers—who have been employed by G/O media for over a combined 25 years. Because of the nature of their yearly contracts, they will not receive adequate severance.

They were employed at half the rate of American staff writers due to the nature of these contracts, and were rarely offered raises. Unfortunately this move to eliminate the Español team represents yet another broken promise from G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller and Editorial Director Merrill Brown, who have repeatedly said that the company's AI experiments were intended to supplement human writing, not replace it. This week, a team of four has been [replaced] by an undisclosed automated machine translation service. Adding insult to injury, when the Gizmodo staff objected to having their bylines attached to machine translations, G/O management removed all bylines from Gizmodo Español—even the bylines of the four journalists who were laid off by G/O Media this week. We remain stringently opposed to G/O Media's use of AI-generated content and pledge to continue fighting on behalf of journalists and the indispensable public service they provide.

As always, we appreciate your support — and your continual support of real journalism.