How AI will change the future of journalism | Science and Technology News

Sky News has tested the limits of artificial intelligence to see how it could impact the future of journalism.

The results obtained from experiments in which computers were made to research, write, and edit news were different results – From pitching sage stories about affordable housing to bizarre claims that spilling milk helps the environment.

But that is the limit of current technology. What does the future hold?

Professor Charlie Beckett runs JournalismAI, a London School of Economics initiative to help news organizations harness AI in a responsible way.

It’s been in operation since 2019, but editors and reporters alike have come to grips with its power, and its role has never been clearer than it is today. Generation AI.

He said that “a lot of news outlets are poring over what they can do with this technology,” but everyone is aware of the pitfalls.from Irish Times hoax AI generation columnwhere CNET found errors in articles written by AI, it’s clear that the replacement for real journalists is not yet ready.

“If you make a little mistake on Sky News people will laugh at you.

“If we all get lazy and expect GPT to write stories, screenplays, etc., things can get even worse.”

But just as mobile phones and Google search have transformed the way journalists work, AI seems destined to have a similarly big impact.

Beckett believes the end result will be a smaller newsroom. He could replace some of the jobs of finding interviews, writing scripts for presenters, and writing articles for online audiences.

“There will be new jobs where you have to edit algorithms, review automations, and examine a given data set – hybrid jobs that are both technical and editorial,” he says.

“And the savings that come from efficiencies are to get people to do better human journalism, to send more reporters out to interview people, to be more imaginative, more empathetic, or perhaps It could be aimed at delivering more opinionated articles and so on, doing what machines do.” It doesn’t work that way. ”

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Instructors grapple with how to prepare reporters for potentially AI-powered newsrooms

At the Center for Journalism at the University of Kent, lecturers are working on how to prepare the next generation of reporters for the newsroom of the future, potentially powered by AI.

Professor Ian Reeves says that while AI has “reasonable and ethical uses in the newsroom”, it is “perfectly capable of spewing out complete nonsense with a straight face”.

“In some of the journalism assignments we give our students, we have noticed that they are trying to use this technology to distribute journalism content, and in some cases the results are quite funny,” he said. says.

“In one article about The Sun newspaper and its coverage of the event, the chatbot was unable to distinguish between the newspaper and the burning star in the sky.

”[So] We’re also trying to prove to them that the risks of relying on it to create sensible content are pretty high. ”

The usefulness of generative AI lies at the foundation of journalism

Like Beckett, Reeves believes that the utility of generative AI for reporters and editors lies in some of the more mundane, fundamental foundations of journalism.

Google is often the first point of contact when investigating unfamiliar topics, but ChatGPT may have overtaken it.

Professor Reeves said that what AI “can’t, and I don’t think it will ever be able to do,” is the “really basic journalistic task” of telling real people about real events, testifying, and holding them accountable. said it is. .

These skills will become even more important for journalists to survive in the AI ​​age.

“At the end of the day, it’s all about trust and credit,” he says. “The best journalists who make a difference are those who tell people how things are affecting their real lives, who are witnesses to events. People who have the skills to reveal things, ‘I don’t want to be revealed.

“It’s really not something AI can do.

“The jobs that AI wants are actually content farm type jobs that don’t require those skills, and it’s debatable whether it was really journalism in the first place — not what I’ve seen elsewhere. It is the production of something in large quantities without interacting with anyone else.” Process.

“AI does it well, and publishers will understand that it makes business sense to have a platform to do it, rather than hiring people to do it.”

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“RoboCop Journalist”

For those who read, watch, or listen to what Newsroom produces, “Personalization and Reformatting of Content – Young people want their news in the format, tone, style, size and platform they want.” It’s on – they don’t want to see it.” If you only have 20 seconds, make a 3 minute movie.

“For reformatting and customizing content, for example translating it into another language, give me a simplified or descriptive version of the item. This will become a larger area over time.

“My sort of sci-fi vision for this is like the journalist in RoboCop, with all the tools to enable you to be more efficient, stronger, and better researched, and then write the original article. It’s about creating content from scratch, breaking it up into all sorts of iterations.

“Then viewers can watch Sky News at home, eat breakfast, get in their car, and continue listening to selected stories of interest to them.

“You come home from work in the evening and want to read a little longer book, but it’s all semi-automatic and people have a Spotify-like ability to take what they get.”

Join guests including former Prime Minister Tony Blair for tonight’s special program exploring the impact of AI on the UK and international workforce.

It will also reveal whether the West is lagging behind China in the global race for AI supremacy. The Future of AI: Special on Sky News tonight at 7pm.