"Combatting the Rise of Obituary Spam"

After the death of Beth Mazur, spammy articles falsely claimed her ex-husband, Brian Vastag, had also died, causing distress to their friends. The widespread availability of generative AI tools is accelerating the deluge of low-quality fake obituaries, with some websites using AI to churn out clickbait articles about the deceased. Google has long struggled to contain obituary spam, and funeral homes have been dealing with obituary aggregator sites for years. The articles are detached and nearly identical, often containing inaccurate details, and some sites ruthlessly optimize content for search engines. The problem is exacerbated by the difficulty in distinguishing legitimate obituaries from AI-generated ones, causing distress to family and friends of the deceased.