Will artificial intelligence (AI) change how we make news and deliver it to readers? It is difficult to believe that the media remain oblivious to this technological revolution, but its delicate social function forces us to approach it with the utmost caution.
This is how the majority of the 135 executives and key media officials from 40 countries interviewed for the new Reuters Institute report Changing Newsrooms 2023 see it. 74% believe that AI will free journalists from certain tasks and allow them to focus on the “essence” of their work. “It will profoundly transform the news business in the same way that the Internet did, but this does not mean that the fundamentals of journalism will change,” summarizes one manager. Another points out that “AI can hardly help in the main missions of producing high-value journalism: gathering original material with information often obtained in the field and from human sources; check and verify information; contribute points of view; writing valuable pieces in an original way... but it can help you perform some tasks more efficiently.”
Many of those consulted also point out that the value of quality press will increase in a scenario in which AI will be able to replicate journalistic work with greater skill. “When more stories are written by AI, human-created news, analysis and on-the-ground information will become a more premium product,” emphasizes a British executive.
The deputy director of La Vanguardia, Lola García, stated last week - following the complaint by The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft for using millions of their articles without permission to train AI - that ChatGPT can read all the articles of Enric Juliana and try to emulate his style, but even then “it's not going to reach the soles of his shoes.”
Indeed, if the proposal is made to the program, it declares itself capable of writing like it. The imitation collects expressions that confirm that he has read Juliana, but he throws them without rhyme or reason and only manages to create an imitation full of empty phrases, in which Merkel is even placed as the current chancellor of Germany. A demonstration of how far AI still has to go to compete with or replace the best journalism.
