WILL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE REIGN IN THE JOURNALISM OF THE FUTURE?

It is a complex issues to deal with, but fundamental to understand our future: will artificial intelligence really reign in journalism? With the evolution of search algorithms, technologies and machine learning, developers have already created AI with incredible potential such as GPT-3 or Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3, the third version of the text generator system developed by the organization. profit OpenAI, also used by "The Guardian" to write an essay from scratch on hot topics in the tech-ethical field.

In light of the results obtained, many journalists and experts have been concerned not a little about the implications that the use of a similar tool in publishing can have, often wondering what it could beits impact on the world of information and work .

To find the answers we need, however, first we need to understand the current state of journalism , or rather the perception that readers, journalism students and some writers for blogs and online newspapers have.

Speech on the method: between insights and clickbait

In this analysis we will limit ourselves only to the study of the Italian situation, without however citing specific journalists and newspapers, to understand what is the perception of journalism at a national level, starting in particular from the opinion of readers.

In a 2017 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center concerning the relationship between news outlets and political alignment in Italy, the first data presented are precisely those regarding the reading and trust of the media in the Belpaese: although about 75% believe the Italian newspapers (online, printed or televised) important for the dissemination of the main news, 71% of respondents do not trust them .

The reasons are different: on the one hand, the problem of the political alignment and objectivity of the journalists in question was highlighted, analyzed in a series of polls available in the same Pew Research study. On the other hands, however, some have argued that what makes journalism so unreliable is the method in which articles are written and published , especially when it comes to quick-to-read news.

This opinion is shared daily especially by young people on social networks, so much so that there are also pages and groups on Facebook that are dedicated to sharing and criticizing (sometimes even heavy, ed) articles clickbait or considered decidedly useless and unprofessional.

Substitute or helper?

Many experts and researchers have already tried to answer these questions, generally questioning the future of journalism conditioned by algorithms and AI. One of these, appreciated by several specialists, is Newsmakers: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Journalism by professor at Columbia University in New York Francesco Marconi, head of the media laboratory of the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press.

His thesis is clear: the world of journalism is not in step with the evolution of new technologies; therefore, newsrooms should take advantage of what AI can offer by creating a new business model.

For Marconi, artificial intelligence should become the heart of journalism,but not to replace journalists .

Before we mentioned the article of GPT-3 published by the English newspaper The Guardian : although of high quality, it has always required human support in the search for sources, in the instructions to be respected and in the final revision of the article that includes cuts and the reorganization of some paragraphs. The time and costs to write the editorial were lower than those required by a human journalist, but the final product was not automatically better.

According to Marconi, AI should only replace around 8-12% of human journalistsand only in specific tasks such as finding sources, correcting articles and writing news based on statistical or mathematical data such as the results of football, basketball and all other sports, agreements between companies and local weather. That percentage of editors, on the other hand, would be redirected towards purely human content such as interviews, analyzes, insights, investigative and field journalism.

Currently there are already newspapers that rely on AI for similar content and more: see the case of The Canadian Press , which uses it for translations and articles on weather and sports; or even that of the French newspaper Agence France-Presse , where AI is used to detect which photos are manipulated and which ones can be used in editorials.

In still other cases it is made a fundamental tool for the transcription of audio and video, extremely large databases and complex data, or even the analysis of fake news and deepfake. But then the human being remains the one who checks these data, analyzes them, contextualizes them and reports them in the right way.

And what do young journalists think? For them it isa double-edged sword: having an AI like GPT-3 in the editorial office can teach you to write well, but it shouldn't become an editor instead of being human; it would be much better to have an algorithm that checks the news, helps in finding sources and performs the previously mentioned tasks.

The human and artificial danger: the biases

In this long process, however, an element we have not yet dealt with must be considered : bias , or that set of prejudices - innate or learned - that affect the final product. To give a simple example, a newspaper aligned to a specific political orientation will report more news regarding the politicians of that camp than those of the opposing parties, perhaps more legitimizing their points of view. This factor is already present in current journalism and removing it completely will be a practically impossible task , but it can also be seen in several artificial intelligences, especially with regard to the facial recognition algorithms used to predict citizen crime.

In June, even a coalition called Coalition for Critical Technology formed by 1700 experts was born, which asked through an open letter published in Medium not to publish more studies in favor of this technology because "there is no way to develop a system capable of to predict crime without this mechanism being subject to bias, precisely because the notion of crime is naturally subject to prejudice ".

In the world of journalism, or of research tout court, the problem could arise in the same way: since the algorithms are written by human developers, the risk of the presence of bias capable of altering the analysis of the data is always present. Also for this reason, AI cannot be left alone in writing news, indeed it will have to be the human editor to control this tool according to his needs.

And here a vicious circle could arise , since the AI should in turn check that the human being does not condition the article with his own personal biases.

A professional issue not to be underestimated

Therefore, if the initial question may be difficult to find a definitive answer, since the "hype" for new technologies counteracts the paranoia for the ethical and economic question of the possible loss of jobs, we can try to give an answer to another question: is fully human or AI-supported journalism better ? By equipping ourselves with a little "cynicism" regarding the economic problem, it would be better to have a journalism able to offer the world the most in-depth news , not subject to political and racial bias and based on authoritative sources.

To achieve this goal, then, the support of the AI would be needed not only to help the human editor in the search for sources and in the drafting and correction of the article, but also to control his activity; the additional assumption would be that of analyzing the work of the developer of this algorithm, perhaps by an international super partes regulator, to ensure that the entire final apparatus is as fair and correct as possible.

In short, it would be necessary to find the right middle way to guarantee benefits both to the editor and to the top of the newspaper, but placing the greatest focus on offering the reader the best possible experience .

Currently, however, this does not appears to be the objective of most national and international newspapers for the reader.

Between hype and paranoia, there is still an opportunity

Quoting part of the incipit of the report written by Charlie Beckett for the Google News Initiative and the London School of Economics and Political Science, "No, robots will not take the place of journalism. Yes, machines may soon be able to do a lot of work. routine journalism. But the reality and potential of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and data processing aims to give journalists new powers of discovery, creation and connection. [...] Algorithms will power the systems, but the human touch - the reporter's intuition and judgment - will be a key element. Can the information industry seize this opportunity? " .

There are many problems on both sides, which is why for a long time it is and will be a challenge to try to understand how to exploit artificial intelligence without damaging both the journalist and the product of his work. Despite this, with the right mindset it will be possible to face the economic, ethical and editorial threat of AI to make it a tool capable of enhancing research skills, and then leave it to the human writer to analyze the sources and deal with the issue in matter as thoroughly and professionally as possible.

Finally, the danger of "clickbait corruption" should not be underestimated , often exploited excessively to entice users to read news or editorials and share them on social networks, whether to criticize the title-bait or to discuss the article.

An ethical threat therefore already exists and generates not a few controversies, and is conditioned by the activity of human beings and by algorithms already tested and functioning. To seize the opportunity of artificial intelligence, therefore, we must first "fix the most dangerous bug" in current journalism .

 

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