Artificial Intelligence will not destroy jobs but rather will help create new opportunities in the world of information. It was one of the most outstanding conclusions of the meeting that under the title 'Journalism and Artificial Intelligence' was held yesterday at the Madrid Press Association organized by the Journalism 2030 Forum. Most of the journalists present at the event were optimistic about the benefits of AI for communication and information while representatives of journalist unions warned about the danger that AI poses for the jobs of professionals.
According to a survey carried out by Periodismo 2030 and Fundación AXA carried out by Metroscopia, Spaniards, regardless of their age, think that AI will not improve our way of communicating (49%). The Metroscopia sample offers a pessimistic view: 72% of Spaniards believe that the media do not adequately report on AI advances. 73% feel that the media contribute to the confusion on this matter and 63% acknowledge that the media have a fundamental role of control in defending the general interest.
The most pessimistic part of the survey comes when it comes to assessing negatively how AI affects people's privacy (79%); that encourages hoaxes or fake news (79%) or threatens the security of bank details (69%). The sectors that will benefit most from AI, according to the survey carried out, will be, in order of importance: medicine (85%), banking management (55%), education (46%) and, lastly, journalism: the 52% think that AI will worsen the current functioning of this profession.
Andrés Medina, general director of Metroscopia, was more positive, because according to the conclusions obtained, "the Spanish think that the media are prepared to manage these threats." The general director of the AXA Foundation, Josep Alfonso, also qualified that “it is important that journalists are the ones who tell about the changes. Real intelligence is irreplaceable and seeing how far it can go is interesting. As journalists we have assimilated several technological revolutions and whoever does not adapt is lost in society”.
The Secretary of State for Digitization and Artificial Intelligence, Carme Artigas, attended this event and stated that “the immediacy with which society moves requires the necessary guarantees to face the changes that AI entails. A lot of pedagogy needs to be done, especially by journalists, which allows us to bring the great benefits of AI to the general public in an understandable way. It is difficult to speak of AI in a positive way. Your profession is the authorized voice to convey the bonanzas of AI”.
This 'summit' brought together a total of 23 professionals from the most representative media in the country. In general, the participants opted for a positive future of the use of AI in their daily work, where the majority claimed to use it to improve tasks and data collection times, using it as an assistant to newsrooms.
For the most part, they agreed that AI has not come to replace people or end jobs, but to improve the information that is transmitted if there are people with criteria behind it. The representatives of the journalists' unions, who warned of this danger, citing the recent dismissals of the populist German daily Bild, which "has just dismissed 200 workers," were not of the same opinion.
This summit is the beginning of a debate on the change that will be proposed throughout Spain. The initiative that emerged from Journalism 2030/AXA Foundation, Metroscopia, the Madrid Press Association, some twenty universities, as well as the United Nations Training Agency, UNITAR, will have parallel projects since the debates and their conclusions will be used subsequently in books, podcasts, conferences, a future television program, as well as on the Forum's own website, www.periodismo2030.com.
