Particle.news
Download on the App Store
7 ARTICLES
·
4w ago

FT Says AI Was Used to Condense Harvard Economist’s Op-Ed

The disclosure conflicts with the Financial Times’ ban on AI in writing and raises scrutiny of how newsrooms and universities check authorship.

Ricardo Hausmann, Director of the Center for International Development and Professor of Development Economics at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Image
Copies of Financial Times on display at a newsstand in October 2019. (LCV/Shutterstock)
Image

Overview

  • The Financial Times appended an editorial note saying AI was used to condense a longer draft of Ricardo Hausmann’s op-ed that criticized President Trump’s tariffs.
  • Readers and X users flagged the piece for stilted prose and circulated a Pangram screenshot that pegged the 841-word column as 71% AI-generated.
  • The FT’s editorial code explicitly prohibits AI in the writing process, which frames the disclosure as a potential policy breach rather than a neutral clarification.
  • Prominent commentators and academics publicly criticized the column and questioned the example it sets for students and scholars, while Hausmann had not immediately responded to requests for comment.
  • Observers warned that AI-detection tools like Pangram have produced contested results in past cases, so the episode is likely to prompt reviews of editorial checks, detector use, and any institutional consequences.