Fooled by WaPo???
Mark Amtower
Preeminent GovCon Marketing and LinkedIn Strategy Advisor offering the BEST in-depth LinkedIn training for the Federal market. GovCon Influencer, Top Rated Speaker, award-winning consultant, and Best-selling author.
Over the years the Washington Post (aka #WaPo) has occasionally demonstrated tabloid-like tendencies when it comes to government contracting. One of their reporters, a Pulitzer Prize winner, used to take delight in “exposing” the inner workings of contracts, all with a voluntary minimal knowledge of the process and the ethical parameters involved.
On Sunday, May 19, the Post once again made an incursion into the world of government contracting in an article entitled “Fooled by AI?”
The article discussed a “$1.25 million deal to develop a custom detector to help the Air Force counter Russian and Chinese” deep fakes produced by AI. The reporters chose not to initially mention the type of contract. The award was a SBIR, which most of us realize is a vehicle designed to develop new tools and techniques. SBIR was only mentioned in the last third of the article, nearly 30 paragraphs into the piece, which most readers would have missed because most people aren’t reading more that the first few paragraphs anyway.
The article implies that the government is spending money with companies unqualified to perform the task.
An explanation of the SBIR process early in the article would have clarified the situation, but it would have diminished the tabloid-like impact. Mentioning SBIRs at the end of the article seems like a CYA exercise.
For those of us in the government market, the dollar amount mentioned in the second paragraph is the first tip off. This is no standard contract, this is a SBIR, a small business innovative research award. SBIRs exist to help small companies develop technologies of potential value to the agency awarding the SBIR. The dollar value of these vehicles is very low, miniscule, by our normal contract awards.
Yet it is the lead story in the Sunday WP business section.
One thing I liked about the story is the reporters used #LinkedIn to check the credentials of the company, the founder and employees. They found the company had “no PhDs, no AI specialists or forensic scientists on staff- a lack of subject matter expertise that, experts say, suggests a disconnect from the fast-moving deepfake research community.” (These guys really need my help developing their presence on LinkedIn.)
LinkedIn, btw, was mentioned in the third paragraph, while the explanation of SIBRs was relegated to near the end of the article.
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Incomplete LinkedIn profiles abound, and while it does indicate a certain naiveté on the part of the company, it by no means disqualifies them from the SBIR process.
And btw, kudos to #DeepMedia for getting to Phase 2.
The article highlights that many of the tools designed to find “deepfakes” are largely “untested.” What a shock! That is what the three-phase SBIR process is all about- developing and testing before deploying.
For me, the title (“Fooled by AI?”) and the structure of this article – leaving the SBIR explanation to near the end, indicate WaPo is more interested in exploitative journalism rather than serious news about government contracting.
Not that I have an opinion.
Article link:
Manager, Customer Success | Intelligent Automation, Cloud Computing, AI
4 个月Mark, thanks for sharing!
Chief Executive Officer I Managing Partner I Industry Leader I Strategy & Transformation Architect I Thought Leader
6 个月Good piece, Mark. What’s frustrating is there are plenty of examples of $ being wasted by bad contracts and poor performance. I’d love to see WaPo go highlight some of those and draw attention to poor procurement and deployment of taxpayer dollars. We all benefit from that being exposed. As you point out, this is a case of the reporter not really understanding the topic and not providing context all in attempt to latch on to a hot topic to get clicks. Disappointing and the WaPo needs to do better.
Founder @ Modev | Emerging Market Ecosystems | Global Community Builder
6 个月Spot on, Mark. We love DeepMedia and applaud their efforts to go into such a challenging market and take it head on. We need many more like them!
Federal CXO whisperer, focused on being a force for good by enabling agencies in their quest to find truth in a digital world.
6 个月WaPo like most media are after one thing...eyeballs. In today's world, that equals clicks. The headline is clickbait, for sure. According to the Society or Professional Journalists, the author violated the third item in their Code of Ethics which states: "Provide context. Take special care not to misrepresent or oversimplify in promoting, previewing or summarizing a story." https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp
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6 个月Mark - this was a nice, tight read. Hit all the major points. More, sir!