Why the news industry is still playing catch up one year on from ChatGPT
Generative artificial intelligence exploded when OpenAI unleashed ChatGPT on an unsuspecting public just one year ago. Here, ACM AI editorial lead, Saffron Howden, looks at why the news industry is still playing catch up and what it needs to do to get ahead.
Generative artificial intelligence exploded when OpenAI unleashed ChatGPT, free, on an unsuspecting public just a year ago.
But it had been sitting quietly among us undetonated for some time.
As is tragically a tradition for the news industry worldwide, we were as surprised as our audiences that the revolution was upon us.
Now we’re scrambling alongside governments. Is it going to take our jobs? Do we run away scared? Embrace it? Do we unleash it? Keep it in check?
How do we do that when the kids are already using it to finish school assignments, oblivious to bias, misinformation, context and the prejudice of data?
Trust the journalism
Somewhere on my whirlwind tour of Google, Microsoft, numerous San Francisco start-ups and newsrooms in late October, something a fellow news type said struck a chord:
“Journalism is not data; it’s knowledge.”
In a packed, week-long visit to Silicon Valley to investigate genAI in the news industry – overwhelmed by mind blowing, discombobulating tech innovation – it was a moment of calm.
Journalism is inherently human. Its value is rooted in critical thinking, a sense of right and wrong, truth, emotion, balance and empathy.
And that gives it an edge over the machines.
We can’t afford to wait
Earlier in 2023, I was lucky to be part of the London School of Economics media think tank’s JournalismAI Academy for Small Newsrooms which provided a crucial foundation for my leap into AI.
I was also a wide-eyed traveller on an International News Media Association (INMA) study tour of the world’s tech beating heart.
I was joined by 17 other senior news media professionals from Europe, the UK, the US, South America and Asia as we heard from some of the world’s biggest brains in AI about what the future holds.
And I came away with a few key thoughts.
● Generative AI is here and it is evolving on a daily basis. The news business cannot afford to look away and it cannot wait to see what happens next before acting.
● Mis- and disinformation will likely accelerate rapidly with genAI. Our audiences will need us more than ever to help cut through the noise, especially as regulation of AI will take time and its efficacy remains to be seen. I want to be able to trust my local news outlet and local reporter when everything else seems uncertain.
● There are big opportunities to make the mundane, repetitive tasks journalists do every day more efficient and free them up to work on bigger, more in-depth, impactful stories.
● Investigative and data journalism could be supercharged by AI.
Multiple public inquiries under way around Australia are examining how generative AI will affect health services, education, banking, employment and our way of life.
US President Joe Biden has signed an executive order aimed at managing the risks and the European Union (EU) is clambering to regulate the biggest disruption since the advent of computers and the internet.
Now the AI pioneer, OpenAI, is at the centre of its own corporate drama, torn asunder by a not-for-profit mission to benefit all, its meteoric and unwieldy rise, the rapid-fire development of AI systems, and responsibility to investors in its corporate arm.
Can AI help local news thrive?
ACM, with about 100 mastheads around regional Australia and more than 140,000 digital subscribers, is carefully and cautiously joining the revolution.
It has established an internal, cross-functional AI working group to explore ways to find efficiencies using generative AI across the business.
An AI Code of Conduct for all staff, including journalists, was developed in September to ensure there are parameters around how AI can be responsibly tested and used, including a commitment to transparency.
Journalists from Burnie to Tamworth have been surveyed to ask what they think about AI and the risks and opportunities it poses, followed by information sessions and Q&As with executives.
Am I scared about how generative AI will change journalism (and the world)? Definitely. But am I also excited? Absolutely.
The industry can’t get ahead of AI unless it understands it. We need to arm ourselves with the knowledge we need to act.
And I’m chuffed readers of long-standing regional Australian mastheads like The Courier in Ballarat and the Illawarra Mercury in Wollongong will be at the forefront of how AI is harnessed for quality local news and information.
