A good rule of thumb I always use if a science article title has the word "breakthrough"in it, then it's probably not a breakthrough.
If the title does nothing to describe the actual discovery made and solely consist of "Breakthrough in [Field]" then it's definitely not a breakthrough.
A good rule that could be refined by applying it only to topics that the general public cares about. A breakthrough in analytic number theory or international accounting standards is probably genuine, one in AI or battery technology probably not.
Why is that? I suppose complex maths is harder for the science journalist to understand, and doesn’t get as many clicks, so if they are reporting on it it’s because it’s substantial?
Any rule that reduces the posterior of a breakthrough is generally going to be an improvement. Unless your definition of "breakthrough" is extremely generous.
The problem for me is by AI capability and volume. Stephen King is said to write somewhere in the ballpark of 2,000 words per day with about 100 books written. Scholastic Press publishes about 600 books per year. Now lets say in theory an AI were able to write 2,000 words per second and be able to produce thousands of books per day. This AI could have live access marketing data to tailor write books to specific demographics or even specific individuals. So how could a human author compete? I would think access to copyright would be the only edge a human could have.
Now as for using AI and AI-based writing tools like the GPT2 program that autocompletes sentences for writers is no different then an artist tool like you said.
https://transformer.huggingface.co/
Would you say that false information harms you personally?