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How does AI compete with journalism? AI doesn't do investigative reporting, AI can't even observe the world or send out reporters. Which part of journalism is

How does AI compete with journalism? AI doesn't do investigative reporting, AI can't even observe the world or send out reporters. Which part of journalism is AI going to impact most? Opinion pieces that contain no new information? Summarizing past events?

allturtles 3y ago
Sadly, opinion pieces are what drives the news economy these days. Columnists/commentators, in effect, subsidize the hard news (at those venues that even bother to produce the latter). Filling their prime time hours with opinion journalism was the trick that Fox News discovered to become wildly successful.
HDThoreaun 3y ago
AI certainly isn’t a replacement for journalism, but that doesn’t mean journalism will continue to exist if no one pays for it. If everyone gets their news from chatGPT or the like there will be no investigative reporting. We’re already beginning to see this with most people reading the google/Facebook blurbs instead of clicking the link and giving ad money let alone paying.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  We're not just beginning to see it, it's already happened. It was enabled by digitized information, then amplified by the networking of the internet. The value of fresh information today is worth the price of a Google refresh, which for most people is effectively nothing. AI doesn't change that equation, and I'd argue it's overall impact on journalism will be less harmful than an ad-optimized economy or even the mere existence of YouTube. Quality journalism hasn't had a meaningful source of funding for a while, now. If AI does end up replacing honest-to-goodness investigative reporting, it'll be for the same reason the internet replaced the newspaper.
- insanitybit 3y ago
  > If everyone gets their news from chatGPT But I've just explained that ChatGPT can't actually produce news articles. I can't ask ChatGPT what happened today, and if I could it would be because a journalist went out and told ChatGPT what happened.
  - HDThoreaun 3y ago
    So at first ChatGPT will copy journalists. Then journalists will stop working because nobody pays them. Then there will be no news. Some people may look at that situation and decide to start a new news business but that business will fail because ChatGPT will immediately rip it off. The end game is just no news other than volunteers.
    - smoldesu 3y ago
      > So at first ChatGPT will copy journalists. You still literally have not explained how this works. ChatGPT could write a news article, but it's not going to actively discover new social phenomena or interview people on the street. Niche journalism will continue having demand for the sole reason that AI can't reliably surface new and interesting content. So... again, how does a pre-trained transformer model scoop a journalist's investigation? > Then journalists will stop working because nobody pays them. How is that any different than the status-quo on the internet? The cost of quality information has been declining long before AI existed. Thousands of news publications have gone out of business or been bought out since the dawn of the internet, before ChatGPT was even a household name. Since you haven't really identified what makes AI unique in this situation, it feels like you're conflating the general declining demand for journalism with AI FOMO.
      - HDThoreaun 3y ago
        AI labs are working on and largely already have generative ai that can be actively updated. The generative ai scoops real journalists stories by watching their feed. This isn’t very different from the current status quo, it’s just a continuation of an already shitty situation for news organizations. If their revenue decreases even more than it already has they will cease to exist. Niche journalism barely has any demand today, it won’t take much more reduction in demand for it to not be worth the cost to produce. Just a few more people using big tech products as their news feed instead of the news organizations themselves is all it would take. You can say that the people getting their news from the tech products will switch to paying news organizations in some way if the news starts to disappear but I highly doubt it seeing how people treat news today. And if it that does happen they’ll switch back again to the ai products as the centralization it can provide is valuable.

allturtles 3y ago

Sadly, opinion pieces are what drives the news economy these days. Columnists/commentators, in effect, subsidize the hard news (at those venues that even bother to produce the latter). Filling their prime time hours with opinion journalism was the trick that Fox News discovered to become wildly successful.

HDThoreaun 3y ago

AI certainly isn’t a replacement for journalism, but that doesn’t mean journalism will continue to exist if no one pays for it. If everyone gets their news from chatGPT or the like there will be no investigative reporting. We’re already beginning to see this with most people reading the google/Facebook blurbs instead of clicking the link and giving ad money let alone paying.

smoldesu 3y ago
We're not just beginning to see it, it's already happened. It was enabled by digitized information, then amplified by the networking of the internet. The value of fresh information today is worth the price of a Google refresh, which for most people is effectively nothing. AI doesn't change that equation, and I'd argue it's overall impact on journalism will be less harmful than an ad-optimized economy or even the mere existence of YouTube. Quality journalism hasn't had a meaningful source of funding for a while, now. If AI does end up replacing honest-to-goodness investigative reporting, it'll be for the same reason the internet replaced the newspaper.
insanitybit 3y ago
> If everyone gets their news from chatGPT But I've just explained that ChatGPT can't actually produce news articles. I can't ask ChatGPT what happened today, and if I could it would be because a journalist went out and told ChatGPT what happened.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  So at first ChatGPT will copy journalists. Then journalists will stop working because nobody pays them. Then there will be no news. Some people may look at that situation and decide to start a new news business but that business will fail because ChatGPT will immediately rip it off. The end game is just no news other than volunteers.
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    > So at first ChatGPT will copy journalists. You still literally have not explained how this works. ChatGPT could write a news article, but it's not going to actively discover new social phenomena or interview people on the street. Niche journalism will continue having demand for the sole reason that AI can't reliably surface new and interesting content. So... again, how does a pre-trained transformer model scoop a journalist's investigation? > Then journalists will stop working because nobody pays them. How is that any different than the status-quo on the internet? The cost of quality information has been declining long before AI existed. Thousands of news publications have gone out of business or been bought out since the dawn of the internet, before ChatGPT was even a household name. Since you haven't really identified what makes AI unique in this situation, it feels like you're conflating the general declining demand for journalism with AI FOMO.
    - HDThoreaun 3y ago
      AI labs are working on and largely already have generative ai that can be actively updated. The generative ai scoops real journalists stories by watching their feed. This isn’t very different from the current status quo, it’s just a continuation of an already shitty situation for news organizations. If their revenue decreases even more than it already has they will cease to exist. Niche journalism barely has any demand today, it won’t take much more reduction in demand for it to not be worth the cost to produce. Just a few more people using big tech products as their news feed instead of the news organizations themselves is all it would take. You can say that the people getting their news from the tech products will switch to paying news organizations in some way if the news starts to disappear but I highly doubt it seeing how people treat news today. And if it that does happen they’ll switch back again to the ai products as the centralization it can provide is valuable.