I'll admit that at least looks consistent with extreme carelessness rather than lying. I don't find it terribly convincing, though. I find it a suspiciously long chain of excuses perfectly calibrated to excuse the events. The description gets vague right at the critical point where AI output gets laundered into journalistic output, and the part about the tool being strictly to gather "verbatim source material" sounds like the narrow end of a wedge of excuses for something that actually doesn't do that. But I don't have the background to tell with confidence whether he's lying. If it turns out he's not, well, I'd feel a little bad, but I still wouldn't respect him.
I certainly stand by my broader claim that lying is fireable.
Well I appreciate you taking the time to respond and acknowledge the new evidence. I agree with the broad point that dishonesty can't be tolerated in a newsroom. And it's a "Caesar's wife must be beyond reproach" situation, the appearance of dishonesty is very bad regardless of the reality. And despite what Orland claims I do think there's blame to go around for not catching the mistake (assuming we accept his account).
For what it's worth, the post below talks about experimenting with Claude Code but also having COVID in December. I don't know what to think of that, I did work with a guy who just kept catching COVID (or at least he said that and I believed him, I didn't swab him personally or anything), but it is weird for him to have COVID in December and February.
> but it is weird for him to have COVID in December and February.
Unlucky, sure, but not beyond the bounds of possibility. Also possible that one or both was actually flu or RSV or other non-COVID fever-inducing respiratory disease; people often just bucket them all under COVID these days (a bit like they used to with flu).
Yes, absolutely. I felt obliged to report any contrary indicator I came across. But it's totally plausible, and I have been convinced I had COVID and tested negative multiple times.
