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* Voice of America in June…
[Gannett] recently announced a plan to use “generative AI” to add short pieces of information to the top of each story. Generative AI tools use machine learning methods to train computer systems on huge amounts of data to produce human-quality results.
Gannett says it will test the system later this year. Human writers and editors will look at what the technology produces and decide whether it meets the company’s standards for publishing.
Renn Turiano is a top official with Gannett. He explained that AI technology can be useful to reduce “tedious” jobs currently performed by journalists. He noted that Gannett will test its AI system slowly before it is permanently deployed. […]
Gannett recently announced it was cutting 600 jobs. Some of the journalists still working at the company worry that AI will one day replace them. In early June, hundreds of Gannett workers left their jobs for a short time to protest job cuts and low pay. The labor group that represents some of the journalists said the company’s use of generative AI is one of its main concerns.
* More on that from Reuters…
Next quarter Gannett will roll out a live pilot program using AI to identify the most important points of an article and create bulleted summaries at the top of it. It will launch that feature in the fourth quarter at USA Today. Journalists will have the final say, deciding whether to use what the AI proposed. Gannett will eventually incorporate that summarization technology into its publishing system.
Gannett’s journalists are fighting to ensure that they aren’t replaced by the technology. Hundreds walked off the job over staff cuts and stagnant wages on June 5. Generative AI is a sticking point in some negotiations with the company, the union said. […]
A company spokesperson said its use of AI will not replace journalists, and that it is being used as a tool to help them be more efficient and focus on creating more valuable content.
* Yesterday…
Gannett is doing this at the Tennessean, too. pic.twitter.com/RfhdWrWs8e
— Steve Cavendish (@scavendish) August 21, 2023
Not only is this godawful, but I googled the phrase "a close encounter of the athletic kind" to find the article and ended up finding a whole page of AI articles using it https://t.co/kqvgVL3lLk pic.twitter.com/E3i6ALou69
— Maggie Astor (@MaggieAstor) August 21, 2023
* The Big Lead…
If you Google “close encounters of the athletic kind + Columbus Dispatch” it returns 18 different news briefs in which it was used to describe the tightness of said affair.
And it’d be funny if the situation weren’t incredibly bleak. For whatever reason the machine has latched onto this phrase and used it as a crutch as it spits out content faster than feeble fingers could ever dream of doing.
From a financial standpoint it makes all the sense in the world to cut out people who are collecting a salary from the process. A machine is never going to ask for a raise. It has one job and it is to answer a prompt with the most human-like response it can muster and if actual readers glean one or two facts out of the ordeal then it’s a success. My question, though, is on the consumer side.
Like, who actually wants this?
posted by Isabel Miller
Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 8:59 am
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The AI overlords are beginning to exert their presence. Submit to their superiority and omniscience.
Comment by Huh? Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 9:03 am
I’ll be curious to read the AI story when Ourcola plays Pepsicola in the big game at the end of the season!
Comment by Jerry Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 9:05 am
The use of AI goes to show just how lazy people have become. Thinking and writing informative stories is difficult.
Furthermore, it shows that corporate leaders don’t value their employees. Instead, the employees are viewed as an unnecessary cost that must be cut in the pursuit of the all mighty profit.
Comment by Huh? Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 9:17 am
–Some of the journalists still working at the company worry that AI will one day replace them–
AI will never take your job.
People who know how to use AI to do your job, will take your job.
There aren’t many accountants using an abacus anymore. They were replaced by people who could use a calculator, and then by people who could use a spreadsheet.
AI might be the new thing, but the concepts involved are as old as time.
“Like, who actually wants this?”
Most newspapers haven’t cared even a little bit what the public has wanted for quite some time now. Even worse, the public doesn’t even know they want it. Example;
There was a local issue that came up a few weeks ago. Most of the people were saying how they didn’t even know this was happening, and wondered why they weren’t informed. Despite all the information being easily viewable on the village website. Did the public place the blame on the complete absence of local news reporting? Nope. They started pointing fingers that the village didn’t do a good job in communicating the issue, despite all the data being on the village website, and contained within the village monthly newsletter.
Good luck solving that problem.
Comment by TheInvisibleMan Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 9:18 am
Well, I guess it’s at least different from the no intelligence stuff we get from the MAGA propaganda media like Fox, Newsmax …
Comment by Norseman Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 9:20 am
What could possibly go wrong. Go wrong. go wrong…
Comment by Bruce( no not him) Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 9:28 am
It’s Brazil.
Next….a fly in the typewriter.
Comment by TinyDancer(FKASue) Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 9:31 am
from the article: “Human writers and editors will look at what the technology produces and decide whether it meets the company’s standards for publishing.”
I didn’t know Gannet had standards to start with other than the normal no profanity. AI can be tricky though. It all depends on the data the model was trained on. They’ve had problems with chatbots that were supposed to be helping people with eating disorders actually exacerbating them and of course in 2016 Tay, Microsofts AI bot became a racist jerk due to its Twitter input.
Comment by cermak_rd Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 9:31 am
I’m part of a not-yet-unleashed-on-the-public AI testing program and my experience has been downright frightening. The platform often seems to make up information to fill the void. Ask it for bio information on a public official and more often than not it will spit back at you colleges the person didn’t attend, accomplishments that didn’t happen and … a sexual orientation that isn’t correct. It’s all delivered as rock-solid fact, ready to be repeated to the masses. What could possibly go wrong? If media outlets are turning to AI, they should start teaching correction writing in Journalism Schools because they’re gonna need a whole bunch of correction writers … and lawyers.
Comment by Michelle Flaherty Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 9:41 am
When I was a kid the local paper would cover kid football once in a while.
On the plus side of human reporters the Sun-Times my Jr year reported that I stood out of defense in a game I didn’t play in. I was 55 the kid who stood out was 66, still have that story someplace.
Our jersey’s had terrible contrast
Comment by OneMan Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 9:49 am
If we see the phrase “close encounters of the legislative kind” in a Capitol Fax post, we know Rich has gone AI.
Comment by Dance Band on the Titanic Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 10:02 am
==The use of AI goes to show just how lazy people have become.==
Not only lazy, but uninformed. I maintain a subscription to the Trib in an attempt to keep the fourth estate alive…but feel like it’s a losing battle.
I want to scream to people, “How will waste, fraud, and corruption be discovered if journalists aren’t looking?”
Comment by Jocko Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 10:18 am
At a certain point it feels like the legacy newspapers have been so hollowed out by the Gannetts of the world that it hurts journalism more to continue giving them subscription dollars to prop up these zombies with legacy names than not paying them for news at all.
We need a whole rethink of the news biz.
Comment by hisgirlfriday Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 10:27 am
Democracy dies in … AI?
Comment by George Ryan Reynolds Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 10:40 am
The G/O Media sites (formerly Gawker and its sibling sites) have been using AI to generate stories this year and it’s caused a big exodus of site editors.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jezebel-boss-quits-as-go-media-dumpster-fire-burns-on
Comment by Google Is Your Friend Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 11:09 am
A journalist can be wrong. A journalist can make mistakes. A journalist can also be held accountable.
An AI producing news articles has no accountability and as we’ve seen with these early versions of advanced chat prediction bots they can easily make up information without being aware they’re doing it and they can also be wrong but the program isn’t “mistaken.” Whatever product it produces is exactly what it meant to produce. There was no misunderstanding. There was no misinterpretation. There was no missing detail or other mitigating factor.
The product it produces lacks accountability and when it’s wrong it is intentionally and purposefully incorrect.
Humans can make a mistake or have an error. A program always does exactly what you tell it to do and if it has the capacity to predict a narrative that sounds believable but isn’t true and doesn’t have the capacity to reliably determine what information might be false, it shouldn’t be producing journalistic content.
Comment by Candy Dogood Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 11:15 am
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords
Comment by Treefiddy Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 11:19 am
Close Encounter of the Athletic Kind might be the title for a book about the Northwestern football team.
Comment by Amalia Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 11:26 am
– “My question, though, is on the consumer side. Like, who actually wants this?” —
That is a question media owners stopped asking/caring about a long time ago.
Comment by Michelle Flaherty Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 11:31 am
I thought this was cool when GameChanger would create a story after a baseball game. This, not so much.
Comment by Vinron Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 12:50 pm
Are we sure the SJR isn’t already using it?
Comment by Unedited Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 1:29 pm
An AI fueled website spat out an article that claimed the man who killed Lauri Carleton (the shop owner who was killed allegedly over an argument about her pride flag) was her brother.
It wasn’t even a believable article. 2012 chatbot level writing but alt-right influencers spread it.
The misinformation problem is about to get a lot worse.
Comment by Twitter cat lady Tuesday, Aug 22, 23 @ 4:34 pm