The Deuce: The LA Times’ new AI tool to generate opposing views posts KKK-sympathetic views

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/05/media/la-times-ai-kkk-comments

On early Tuesday, the new AI tool generated counterpoints to a February 25 column from Times columnist Gustavo Arellano. Arellano’s column argued that Anaheim, California, ought to not forget the Ku Klux Klan’s role in its past — calling the white supremacist group “a stain on a place that likes to celebrate the positive” — and connecting it to today’s political landscape. But the divergent views generated by the Times’ AI produced a softer vision of the far-right group, which it called “‘white Protestant culture’ responding to societal changes rather than an explicitly hate-driven movement.”

While the AI-generated comments have since been removed from the piece, and Arellano chimed in to say the “AI actually got that right” since “OCers have minimized the 1920s Klan as basically anti-racists since it happened,” the newspaper owner’s lack of awareness about the controversy is a glaring issue.