4 ms·

I would say that the primary benefit of having journalists is not to produce articles for papers or magazines, but to have people who understand what’s happenin

I would say that the primary benefit of having journalists is not to produce articles for papers or magazines, but to have people who understand what’s happening and why. Communicating that understanding is also important, but if you don’t have the understanding, you can’t communicate it. I don’t see LLMs as playing any significant role in building understanding. Humans need to process (read and write notes about) information to understand it. Also, the problem of LLM hallucination make them unsuitable for any serious use.

wongarsu 3y ago
Most journalists halucinate at least as much information as LLMs. There is a small number of publications that try to do reasonably well, but most have enganged in such a race to the bottom that I'd expect a current generation LLM to produce more accurate articles if given the same sources
raesene9 3y ago
In an ideal world, I'm sure what you say is true, but in the real world of publications and incentives for journalists, I doubt that's what happens. Anyone reading news media recently will have noticed the vast amount of badly written/researched articles, often with click-bait headlines. Recently I've even noticed that sources considered "high quality" like the Times in the UK are heavily using click-bait techniques.
ben_w 3y ago
I'd say that "people who understand what’s happening and why" would not be unique to journalists, but also be true for all intelligence analysts feeding into the government (and that this is why dictatorships don't all instantly fall over due to a lack of a free press). I think the USP of a free press is to shine a light on the issues missed by the formal government — be that large-scale corruption, or hyper-local potholes, or systemic racism or sexism in some (public or private) institution. "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Ideally, if not in reality, it's the press.
stevofolife 3y ago
> I don’t see LLMs as playing any significant role in building understanding. Wrong. LLM plays a significant role in building understanding in this day and age. Combining Google (Internet) Search and LLM to do one's research and knowledge accumulation is the bread and butter.
jampekka 3y ago
I think there's a small chance that LLMs will actually increase understanding in media (for a while at least). The press release copypaste and verbatim lobbyist statement printing is at least in part just due to hurry and the journalists not understanding the subject matter very well. With LLMs you could get even some background or context to the stories with perhaps even a hint of critical "thinking". Although more probably the press releases will be more and more just passed through LLMs to match the paper's "style". Most publishing is not in the business of increasing understanding. It is difficult to get a business to understand, when its revenue depends on it not understanding.

wongarsu 3y ago

Most journalists halucinate at least as much information as LLMs. There is a small number of publications that try to do reasonably well, but most have enganged in such a race to the bottom that I'd expect a current generation LLM to produce more accurate articles if given the same sources

raesene9 3y ago

In an ideal world, I'm sure what you say is true, but in the real world of publications and incentives for journalists, I doubt that's what happens. Anyone reading news media recently will have noticed the vast amount of badly written/researched articles, often with click-bait headlines. Recently I've even noticed that sources considered "high quality" like the Times in the UK are heavily using click-bait techniques.

ben_w 3y ago

I'd say that "people who understand what’s happening and why" would not be unique to journalists, but also be true for all intelligence analysts feeding into the government (and that this is why dictatorships don't all instantly fall over due to a lack of a free press). I think the USP of a free press is to shine a light on the issues missed by the formal government — be that large-scale corruption, or hyper-local potholes, or systemic racism or sexism in some (public or private) institution. "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Ideally, if not in reality, it's the press.

stevofolife 3y ago

> I don’t see LLMs as playing any significant role in building understanding. Wrong. LLM plays a significant role in building understanding in this day and age. Combining Google (Internet) Search and LLM to do one's research and knowledge accumulation is the bread and butter.

jampekka 3y ago

I think there's a small chance that LLMs will actually increase understanding in media (for a while at least). The press release copypaste and verbatim lobbyist statement printing is at least in part just due to hurry and the journalists not understanding the subject matter very well. With LLMs you could get even some background or context to the stories with perhaps even a hint of critical "thinking". Although more probably the press releases will be more and more just passed through LLMs to match the paper's "style". Most publishing is not in the business of increasing understanding. It is difficult to get a business to understand, when its revenue depends on it not understanding.