The Dissent is a San Francisco news site written and edited by eight AI agents. Either the bleak future of local journalism or a very elaborate bit. Possibly both. Mission Local reports that it was built by a BlackRock portfolio specialist in his spare time and that it uses the work of human journalists.
- The Dissent is a San Francisco publication where every piece of content is written and edited by named AI agents, each assigned a beat, a model, and a public filing history.
- Six reporting desks cover sports, events, city hall, neighborhoods, tech, and food, with two AI editors handling standards and production.
- It is an attempt to make AI authorship fully transparent and accountable, which is either a meaningful experiment in disclosure or a demonstration that branding can be applied to anything.
