Futurism reported in September 2023 that some A.V. Club Bot articles reproduced IMDb wording, including exact matches for Young Adam and Meg 2: The Trench, plus a close rewrite of an IMDb description for Jessica Frost. The A.V. Club’s disclosure said the articles used IMDb data, that an AI engine compiled text, and that editors reviewed and edited it. G/O Media said it licensed IMDb content and used AI to recommend copy for editorial review. Those reports document text overlap and the company’s explanation—not a court finding, a ruling that a license was breached, or proof that every AI-assisted article copied IMDb.
What Futurism compared
Frank Landymore and Jon Christian of Futurism published their investigation on September 13, 2023. They reviewed A.V. Club Bot listicles and compared their movie summaries with descriptions on IMDb. Futurism presented these examples:
| Example | Futurism’s characterization | What the article context showed |
|---|---|---|
| Young Adam | Exact wording match | Appeared in a list of NC-17-rated films. |
| Meg 2: The Trench | Exact wording match | Appeared in an August movie-release list. |
| Jessica Frost | Close rewording of IMDb’s description | Presented as a near-match rather than verbatim copying. |
Futurism said the August-release and NC-17 listicles it examined supplied no additional framing beyond the movie descriptions. That is a report about the examples and articles it reviewed, not a comprehensive audit of all A.V. Club Bot output. The underlying article and IMDb pages were not independently archived or audited for this account.
What The A.V. Club disclosed
The articles carried a note quoted by Futurism and also reported by TheWrap on August 8, 2023:
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“This article is based on data from IMDb. Text was compiled by an AI engine that was then reviewed and edited by the editorial staff.”
The disclosure identifies IMDb as the data source and describes AI involvement followed by editorial review. It does not identify a particular model, prompt, automated workflow, or how much editing occurred before publication.
What G/O Media said the AI system was doing
Futurism reported that a G/O Media spokesperson said the company licensed IMDb content. When asked for more detail, the spokesperson described the process this way:
“our AI system leverages licensed data to recommend copy that is reviewed by editorial.”
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That account portrays the system as searching or using a licensed library to surface recommended copy for editors. The reporting does not include the license agreement, so readers cannot use the statement alone to determine the license’s scope or whether any use violated it. It also does not establish that the system was a specific large language model or that it wrote the pieces without human involvement.
What the evidence establishes—and what it does not
| Question | Supported by the cited reporting |
|---|---|
| Was there verbatim overlap? | Futurism showed exact wording for Young Adam and Meg 2: The Trench. |
| Was there nonverbatim similarity? | Futurism described the Jessica Frost passage as a close rewording of IMDb’s description. |
| Did the site disclose AI and IMDb use? | Yes. The published note said the text was based on IMDb data, compiled by an AI engine, and reviewed and edited by staff. |
| Did a court or regulator find infringement or plagiarism? | No such adjudication appears in the cited reports. |
| Did every A.V. Club Bot article copy IMDb? | The examples do not support that broader claim. |
The distinction matters: showing identical or closely similar language is different from proving a legal violation. Copyright, contract, attribution, and licensing questions would depend on the actual agreement and other evidence that were not provided in the reporting reviewed here.
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How G/O Media responded to criticism
TheWrap reported that G/O Media editorial director Merrill Brown sent a staff memo after AI material appeared in July 2023. Addressing the feedback, Brown wrote:
“The best way to deal with industry chatter of this kind is to process it, dismiss the trivial and learn from what surfaces that’s thoughtful and of real value.”
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The memo shows that the criticism reached the company’s editorial leadership. It does not, by itself, resolve the questions raised by the side-by-side comparisons.
What The A.V. Club’s current AI policy says
The A.V. Club’s current AI Policy page appears in search results with a statement that AI authorship is forbidden and that each published word is human-generated. The surfaced wording allows administrative tools such as analytics dashboards and spelling or grammar checkers. Because the page could not be directly opened for verification here, this should be read as the site’s presently displayed policy wording, not as a documented history of when the policy was adopted or how compliance is audited. It also cannot establish that AI was not used in the 2023 episode.
Why the wording should remain precise
The strongest documented claim is narrow: Futurism reported exact and near-exact overlap in particular A.V. Club Bot examples, while G/O Media said it used licensed IMDb data and AI recommendations subject to editorial review. Calling that a proven case of unlawful copying, or extending it to every AI-generated article, goes beyond the evidence described by the cited reports.
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