A Harvard professor is in hot water over claims that an anti-President Trump opinion article he wrote for the Financial Times was almost entirely AI-generated, with some branding it “slop.”
The article, by former Venezuelan government minister Ricardo Hausmann, now includes a disclaimer from the FT following its publication on Thursday,
“It has come to our attention that AI was used to condense a longer draft of this column prior to submission to the FT and our own editorial involvement,” reads the editorial note at the top of the piece.
“The FT editorial code of conduct specifically prohibits the use of AI in the writing process,” the statement continues.
It came after the op-ed, which criticized President Trump’s tariffs, was called out on social media over its stilted prose.
“Gotta be the worst AI slop I’ve seen in a major publication,” one X user wrote.
Another X user shared a grab from AI detector Pangram, which showed that the 841-word piece was 71% AI-generated.
At a time when many in academia are fighting back against growing numbers of students relying on AI for their work, the idea of a top Harvard Kennedy School of Government academic using the technology for their work was particularly dispiriting.
“It’s going to be very difficult this academic year trying to encourage students to write persuasively with creativity, individuality, and style… when a star Econ professor at Harvard Kennedy School publishes such easily ID’ed AI slop in the Financial Times,” bemoaned Michael Socolow of the University of Maine in a social media post.
Even fans of Hausmann’s work appeared horrified that such a respected economist would use AI to write an article, which was then placed behind a paywall.
Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal described how he had “learned a lot” from Hausmann and “enjoyed talking with him” in the past in a post on X.
“I find this astonishing, both in its writing and its publication,” he added.
Hausmann, 70, a former government minister in his native Venezuela, did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
The Financial Times and the Harvard Kennedy School were also approached for comment.
