As a supervising producer at 精东影业, my typical day includes scouring different platforms for news, reaching out to reporters for updates on stories and checking the assignment calendar to be sure a major announcement or press conference won't be missed.
My colleagues and I need to fill 20 radio newscasts each day, Monday through Friday. Local newscasts are featured during Morning Edition, Here & Now, Fresh Air, The World and All Things Considered. (We also do two local newscasts on Saturday morning before Wait Wait... Don鈥檛 Tell Me.)
That's a lot of news 鈥� and a lot of work. How much of it could be done by artificial intelligence? Could local journalist jobs be made obsolete by AI?
鈥淚t's very hard to imagine a scenario where it does not utterly transform not just journalism, but the whole information ecosystem," said David Caswell, an AI consultant and researcher based in London.
Caswell has worked with organizations such as the BBC and Yahoo, helping companies navigate AI.
鈥淚n terms of the information ecosystem, the least of our worries is the journalism jobs,鈥� Caswell said. 鈥淚 actually think there's going to be more journalists employed 10 years from now than there are now. But I think the roles will be very, very, very different.鈥�
Those very different roles could include overseeing the AI models of newsgathering 鈥� the algorithms, if you will.
鈥淵ou could quite easily see a situation not that far down the road where someone like you could essentially operate your own news channel,鈥� Caswell told Boose. 鈥淎nd your role would be to have the curiosity and the taste and the story selection.鈥�
Caswell compared it to podcasting.
Efficiency or effectiveness
But other analysts warn there are potential pitfalls.
鈥淥f course, companies will abuse it,鈥� said Johannes Klingebiel, a designer and researcher at Media Lab Bayern.
Klingebiel has researched AI for the last decade.
鈥淚 do think efficiency is the wrong goal here,鈥�
Klingebiel said of the potential for downsizing in journalism and AI鈥檚 impact on professional media organizations. 鈥淚 think effectiveness might be more interesting. How can we make our newsroom more effective? How can we make individual journalists more effective using this kind of tooling or this kind technology?鈥�
Klingebiel said historically, uses of technology depend on the needs and objectives of the user.
鈥淚t's not a singular thing,鈥� Klingebiel said. 鈥淚t's like asking people, 'Hey, are you using copper wiring?' It's the same thing, right? The uses are so broad.鈥�
Some journalists may think they have the upper hand over AI due to the emotions people can bring to a story. But Caswell explained AI has mastered that too.
鈥�(AI tools are) emotionally sophisticated,鈥� Caswell said. 鈥淭hey can they know what a style is, they know what tone is, they know what's appropriate in a certain context.鈥�
Even while writing this report, artificial intelligence was used. In minutes, a computer program logged my interviews. And when preparing the audio version of this story (see above), the voice for most of it was a clone of my voice. My actual voice may be less clear, more flawed 鈥� but it's human, and, I like to think, somehow more relatable.
精东影业 does not use AI to voice our reports and has no plans to do so. But the point remains: AI is here. And journalists, like the rest of the world, will have to adapt or be left behind.
