Margaret shared her story as part of MECEP’s State of Working Maine 2026 report. Click here to read the full report.
Margaret works in the field of journalism. She works remotely from her home in Maine.
Earlier this year, we were told that some of our news would be generated by AI by the end of the year. We were told, “it’s happening, it’s happening, it’s happening,” but they couldn’t tell us what tool they would use to generate this copy. They couldn’t tell us what information they would base these stories on, how they were going to ensure nothing was plagiarized, how they were going to ensure nothing was hallucinated, how they were going to ensure that things were accurately described.
We were assured that this was a long time away. It wouldn’t happen this year – no way.
Fast forward a few months, and AI is being pushed for creation of short-form news that had previously been written by our reporters. We were finding a lot of mistakes. It wasn’t saving me any time.
When these stories were written by human beings, my role took about 20 or 30 minutes for each one. With the AI generated copy, I had to spend about an hour and a half on each story. Sometimes I spent triple the amount of time, because of all the work it took to check for mistakes and plagiarism.
This year, the AI use has been expanded even more. For some aspects of our published work, there is no human oversight at all, and mistakes are still happening.
I am not opposed to the use of AI. I am opposed to the way my company is using it. I am opposed to it being unregulated and unchecked. We have a pretty broad age range on our staff. We’ve got people in their mid-20s all the way up to people in their mid-70s. None of us think this is right. This is not a generational divide. It’s not just people over 50 being curmudgeons and resistant to technology.
The line for me is using AI to generate copy that goes out live without being fact checked by a human being. That is the line for me and my company has crossed it.
When we raise issues, they go into the ether. They’re never replied to. Mid-level management here is absolutely opposed to the way this company is using AI, but it’s not their call. The decision’s being made by people way above, who are only in it to make money. It’s got to be about money.
I have told my boss explicitly that I am looking for other employment, because I didn’t spend 30 years of my career as a journalist to be an AI fact checker. Nor am I willing to risk the reputation I’ve built by working for a site that is no longer news and is nothing but AI.
Ultimately I think the integration of AI is going to force me to take a job that pays less money. It’s going to force me to cut my salary, so that I can break free of this and do something else. That’s what I think it’s going to do to me as a worker in the state of Maine. I think AI is going to end up costing me my job.