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The first job AI will replace (this has already partly happened) is the "journalist". Not because the job of a good journalist would be easy to replace, but be

The first job AI will replace (this has already partly happened) is the "journalist". Not because the job of a good journalist would be easy to replace, but because there are no longer good journalists around. They have already been replaced by people who just regurgitate content. That kind of "journalism" is easy to replace with AI. Therefore, the content will be even cheaper to produce. Therefore I don't see it disappearing, because the consumers of the "news" provide value to those who have an agenda to push.

zilti 3y ago
Oh there still are good journalists around. People just don't care enough about quality journalism that they'd spend a few bucks on it a month when there's crappy free journalism.
- kukkeliskuu 3y ago
  Care to share some examples? There are some good investigative journalists in my country, but that is about it. I have seen very close (family member) how even the excellent investigative journalists have difficulties, because they are making power structures uncomfortable, and media ownership is too close to the power structures. In my country, there is even a platform for deep and slow journalism, but the content is crap, because even when journalists get the resources to do quality journalism, they are no longer able to do it. It appears to me that they are so used to pushing agendas, that the only kind of journalism they can do is agenda journalism.
cratermoon 3y ago
In cases like this I think it's better to say AI is eliminating jobs, not replacing them. As you note, the tech can't do the job, but it can do a job, for profit, that will result in other jobs going away. Much like the computer eliminated the job of the newspaper typesetter. Some newspapers already have no local staff, and just publish content generated at some distant office by the owner, like Gannet. Give Gannet access to sufficient LLM resources and they'll churn out crappier crap. Even Sports Illustrated was caught using generated, complete with fake author biographies.[1]. 1. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/nov/28/sports-illustrated-ai-writers https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/nov/28/sports-illustr...
- kukkeliskuu 3y ago
  Elimination vs. replacement, fair enough. Sports Illustrated was what I had in mind when I said that it has already partly happened. It is going to be interesting if people will eventually realize that there is very little substance in the content, especially if the content continues to detoriate. At least Sports Illustrated was ashamed they got caught, and removed the articles.

zilti 3y ago

Oh there still are good journalists around. People just don't care enough about quality journalism that they'd spend a few bucks on it a month when there's crappy free journalism.

kukkeliskuu 3y ago
Care to share some examples? There are some good investigative journalists in my country, but that is about it. I have seen very close (family member) how even the excellent investigative journalists have difficulties, because they are making power structures uncomfortable, and media ownership is too close to the power structures. In my country, there is even a platform for deep and slow journalism, but the content is crap, because even when journalists get the resources to do quality journalism, they are no longer able to do it. It appears to me that they are so used to pushing agendas, that the only kind of journalism they can do is agenda journalism.

cratermoon 3y ago

In cases like this I think it's better to say AI is eliminating jobs, not replacing them. As you note, the tech can't do the job, but it can do a job, for profit, that will result in other jobs going away. Much like the computer eliminated the job of the newspaper typesetter. Some newspapers already have no local staff, and just publish content generated at some distant office by the owner, like Gannet. Give Gannet access to sufficient LLM resources and they'll churn out crappier crap. Even Sports Illustrated was caught using generated, complete with fake author biographies.[1]. 1. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/nov/28/sports-illustrated-ai-writers https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/nov/28/sports-illustr...

kukkeliskuu 3y ago
Elimination vs. replacement, fair enough. Sports Illustrated was what I had in mind when I said that it has already partly happened. It is going to be interesting if people will eventually realize that there is very little substance in the content, especially if the content continues to detoriate. At least Sports Illustrated was ashamed they got caught, and removed the articles.