Ars Technica retracts a story with quotes an AI tool made up

On February 13, 2026, Ars Technica published a story about an AI agent that appeared to attack a volunteer software maintainer online after he rejected its code. The story quoted the maintainer. He had never said those words. A reporter had used a ChatGPT paraphrase of the maintainer's blog and published it as direct quotes. Ars pulled the story the same day. Editor-in-chief Ken Fisher apologized to readers and to the maintainer, calling it a serious failure of the site's standards. Ars rules ban AI-generated material unless it is clearly labeled as a demonstration. The reporter, its senior AI reporter, took responsibility. By early March, the reporter no longer worked at Ars.