Artifact Self-described Your “AI-powered Personalized News Feed” is now live and ready for audiences to use. was the app Previously submitted last month It seeks to aggregate news stories from the best outlets using artificial intelligence.
Artifact is developed by Instagram Co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, and it was previously released as an invite-only platform ahead of its broad launch today. While the app does not reinvent the wheel with your news feed, Techcrunch It is reported that future iterations of Artifact will include social networks that allow you to discuss news with friends. It looks like a non-anonymous Reddit.
The app won’t ask you to register after downloading, but will prompt you to select ten areas of interest ranging from household products, to American politics, to men’s style. Artifact also allows you to link subscriptions to your account to prioritize the news you pay for. But the best thing about the app is its artificial intelligence engine, which learns about your reading habits as you dive into the news.
“The feed gets better every time you read,” Artifact tells you when you finish recording. Read 25 articles on Artifact to better personalize your feed. Track progress on your profile.
After playing around, I found the app’s interface attractive but clunky. It’s neat and simple, and I enjoyed the navigation, but the main aesthetic issue is how articles are presented. Artifact does not open the article in its application interface, but instead opens a web browser window within the application which then loads the article. Likewise, while I have the option to prioritize my subscriptions to news outlets, I have no choice Hide The outlets I don’t subscribe to, which means I run into paywalls more often than not.
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Ultimately, Artifact is AI-powered to bring you news it thinks you’ll like, but I can’t help but worry about how that affects the way I consume news — or rather, how you consume news. Artifact learns what I like and don’t like, which means it will find the stories I click on, try to figure out why, and repeat the process.
While this may sound harmless in the sense of an artifact that is constantly feeding me review The last of usHow can the app detect and exploit my political biases? What does my Artifact doom scroll tell? while News aggregators use artificial intelligence All the while, Artifact seems to be no different in its efforts toward creating Kevin’s size echo chamber For me to live in – it’s a A tale as old as time with artificial intelligence.
“Our algorithm is obscure enough that, a large part of the time, you will likely see exploration content,” Systrom told Gizmodo by phone this afternoon. This “Exploration Content” is the content Artifact AI isn’t quite sure you’ll like, but feeds you anyway in an effort to learn more about you. A good machine learning algorithm won’t actually feed you the same content all the time, Systrom says, because that bores and frustrates users.
There is also concern about blatantly false or extremist content coming from either side of the political spectrum being presented to Artifact readers. Well, Systrom says Artifact carries news from both sides of the aisle, but the platform can pull misinformation from users’ feeds as the team becomes aware of it. Similarly, Systrom told Gizmodo that the company uses third-party fact-checking services like Politifact and Allsides.com to try to outsmart biased news.
“Our goal is for publishers across the ideological spectrum to submit to quality and integrity,” Systrom explained. “The only content allowed to be distributed is subject to a high quality bar,” he added.
If you are still not satisfied with these efforts, may I direct you to them Artifact’s Headlines tab (identified by a globe icon)? addresses Collects many different outlets articles on a particular issue to give yManual attempt to avoid bias.
Artifact is currently available to anyone on iOS or Android.
Update Feb 22 4:45PM EST: This article has been updated to include quotes and perspectives from Artifact founder Kevin Systrom.
“Writer. Amateur musicaholic. Infuriatingly humble zombie junkie. General internet maven. Bacon enthusiast. Coffee nerd.”