AI as a newspaper reporter?! Amazing changes in the world of news and some concerns
Hello, I'm John, a technology commentary blogger!
Recently, we have been hearing the term "AI (artificial intelligence)" in various aspects of our daily lives. From convenient functions on smartphones to cleaning robots, AI is becoming more and more familiar to us.
In this article, we will introduce some of the big changes happening in the world of news.The era of AI writing news articlesis just around the corner!
According to an overseas article, it is predicted that by 2025, "generative AI" will play a central role in article creation in many news organizations (companies that create news). Generative AI is a very smart AI that can create text and images from scratch, just like a human.
AI becoming a reporter sounds like something from a science fiction movie, but it does bring about some good things, but it also brings about some issues that we need to think about. In this article, we'll take a closer look at what the future of "AI reporters" will bring, so that anyone can understand!
AI helps create news! What are the benefits?
First of all, what are the benefits of AI helping to write news articles? The main benefits are as follows:
- Speed up article creation:For a human to write an article from scratch, it takes time to gather information, organize it, and put it into writing. AI can do this work with astonishing speed. For example, it can instantly create articles about news where speed is of the essence, such as financial results announcements and election results.
- Large data analysis and summarization:AI can instantly analyze huge amounts of information that would be overwhelming for a human to read, such as thick government reports or corporate financial data, and summarize the important points. This could lead to new news being generated from information that has previously been overlooked.
- Human reporters can focus on more important things:By leaving simple news creation to AI, human reporters can focus on more creative and time-consuming tasks such as original reporting, interviews, and digging deeper into complex issues. Collaboration between AI and humans has the potential to improve the quality of news overall.
But wait! AI reporters have many challenges
Having AI write news articles is not all good. As the original article points out, it will face some important challenges, or “ethical dilemmas.”
- The issue of "accuracy" of information:The most important thing in news is "accuracy". However, AI sometimes tells plausible "lies" (technically called "hallucination"). There is a risk that it will write incorrect information as if it were a fact. It is essential to have a system in place where humans thoroughly check articles written by AI.
- "Ethics" issues:AI gets smarter by learning from large amounts of human-created text. Therefore, if the learning data contains human prejudices or discriminatory thinking, the AI may imitate them and write biased articles. Society as a whole needs to consider rules for what information to teach and what kind of articles to write.
- Who is "responsible"?If an article written by an AI is incorrect and damages someone's reputation or causes social unrest, who will bear the responsibility? The company that developed the AI? Or the news organization that uses the AI? This is a very difficult legal and ethical question, and there is no clear answer yet.
What's next? A future where AI and humans work together
The story today is not as simple as "AI will take over all human jobs." Rather,How can humans use AI, a new tool, wisely?is being questioned.
In the future, the world of news will see a "cooperative system" where AI handles areas it excels in, such as breaking news and data analysis, while humans handle areas that only humans can do, such as interviewing, providing deep insight, and checking the final content. The role of "human editors" who check articles written by AI reporters may become even more important than it is now.
A note from the author
It may sound a little scary to hear that AI will write articles, but it's like having a "new assistant who is extremely fast" join your team. However, that assistant sometimes makes big mistakes, so it's necessary for a senior human to supervise him properly. I felt that we are required to have the wisdom to use convenient tools wisely, rather than being controlled by them.
This article is based on the following original articles and is summarized from the author's perspective:
How AI Platforms Are Reshaping Media: Generative Journalism
And Ethical Dilemmas