How newsrooms are grappling with uncertainties and opportunities of AI

In early March, a job advert was doing the rounds among sports journalists.

- Michael Savage

It was for an "AI-assisted sports reporter" at USA Today's publisher, Gannett. It was billed as a role at the "forefront of a new era in journalism", but came with a caveat: "This is not a beat-reporting position and does not require travel or face-to-face interviews." The football pundit, Gary Taphouse commented wryly: "It was fun while it lasted."

As the relentless march of AI technology continues, newsrooms are wrestling with the threats and opportunities it creates. The speed at which AI has arrived has brought some early case studies in journalistic misadventure. In early March, the LA Times launched an AI tool giving alternative perspectives on opinion pieces. It caused alarm by saying some local historians saw the Ku Klux Klan as a "white Protestant culture" responding to societal changes rather than an explicitly hate-driven movement, minimizing its ideological threat.

The pitfall, said one media executive looking at AI, was obvious: "It was given a task of making judgments it can't possibly be expected to make."

The fact that even a tech giant like Apple had to suspend a feature that made inaccurate summaries of BBC News headlines shows just how hard it can be to ensure the accuracy of generative AI.