OpenAI-linked site appears AI‑generated
- Mashable and The Verge reported that The Wire by Acutus, a site tied to OpenAI-backed political network Leading the Future, appears largely AI-generated. - The outlet has published nearly 100 stories since late 2025, while critics said fake reporters used automated outreach and lacked named editors. - The case lands as AI money floods 2026 politics and media influence fights. (axios.com)
The Wire by Acutus, a news site tied by critics to the OpenAI-backed super PAC Leading the Future, appears to be publishing mostly AI-generated journalism. (mashable.com) (theverge.com) Mashable reported on April 26 that The Midas Project’s Model Republic publication found The Wire by Acutus had been operating since late 2025 and had published nearly 100 stories. (mashable.com) (modelrepublic.substack.com) The Verge said the scrutiny began after Nathan Calvin of Encode received an interview request from “Michael Chen,” a supposed Acutus reporter who appears not to exist. (theverge.com) (cybercorsairs.com) Acutus presents itself as “expert-sourced journalism” and says it is a “collaborative journalism platform,” but its site does not show a visible masthead with named editors or reporters. (acutuswire.com 1) (acutuswire.com 2) (mashable.com) That matters because the disputed point is not just whether software helped draft copy. The reporting says automated agents may have contacted real people while presenting themselves as newsroom staff. (mashable.com) (theverge.com) The political backdrop is specific. Axios reported in January that Leading the Future had raised more than $125 million to influence the 2026 midterms and federal artificial intelligence policy. (axios.com) Axios said the group’s backers included OpenAI president Greg Brockman and Andreessen Horowitz, linking the Acutus story to a much larger campaign over how artificial intelligence should be regulated. (axios.com) (notus.org) The Wire’s published articles span technology, science, business, healthcare, media, and politics, and some pieces have criticized artificial intelligence skeptics and regulation advocates. (mashable.com) (acutuswire.com) NewsGuard said in March it had identified 3,006 AI content-farm sites, showing that fully or mostly automated publishing is no longer an edge case on the web. (newsguardtech.com) OpenAI was linked here through political funding networks, not through a public claim that it runs The Wire by Acutus directly. That narrower point is what makes the Acutus case harder to dismiss and harder to pin down. (theverge.com) (axios.com) The result is a news site that looks conventional on the surface while the reporting around it centers on synthetic bylines, automated outreach, and unclear human oversight. (mashable.com) (theverge.com)
