A breakthrough in journalism, or another AI fad?
The New York Times cites anonymous sources in a report saying Google demonstrated Genesis for media execs from the Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal owner News Corp. It was an attempt at presenting “responsible” technology that takes in facts and spits out flawless news copy. Two execs mentioned in the article “said it seemed to take for granted the effort that went into producing accurate and artful news stories,” while another saw it as more of a personal assistant or helper rather than a replacement.
Asked about the report, Google spokesperson Jenn Crider provided the following statement to The Verge:
In partnership with news publishers, especially smaller publishers, we’re in the earliest stages of exploring ideas to potentially provide AI-enabled tools to help journalists with their work. For instance, AI-enabled tools could assist journalists with options for headlines or different writing styles. Our goal is to give journalists the choice of using these emerging technologies in a way that enhances their work and productivity, just like we’re making assistive tools available for people in Gmail and in Google Docs. Quite simply these tools are not intended to, and cannot, replace the essential role journalists have in reporting, creating, and fact-checking their articles.
Some executives who sat in on the presentation said the plan for the product was “unsettling.” And who can blame them? ChatGPT can already spit out decent news copy if the prompt is right, but a specialized software? It could be more uncomfortable to grapple with.
Is Genesis the future? It depends on the journalist and the story. Not all news is created equal, so if you’re writing about the county fair, an AI could probably do that with no problem and save time for the writer. If you’re writing about more complex issues like a war in a foreign country, that may best be written by a human who can understand the emotional dimension of it.
But the allure of speeding up lesser-stakes content is no doubt going to attract some in the business although alarm has already been raised at the possibility of making conventional journalism, practiced by humans, obsolete.
