In this technologically advanced era, what really is AI, how is it defined? Does AI do good to humans or does it bring harm like replacing humans? Often, many may not understand how AI helps humans, many believe AI could actually replace us - Human Beings. AI had been used and experimented with mathematical calculus since the year of 1943. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is actually well-known as part of software engineering on building intelligent machines for performing errands that require human insight or thinking.
There are multiple methodologies nowadays, but the development of AI seems to help and make a variation in every sector and every industry. AI has been generally divided into two broad categories which are Narrow AI and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Just a brief explanation, Narrow AI is also known as the weaker ones, operates within a limited context, and has many limitations, but it has already penetrated into our daily lifestyle. What you see today, like the face recognition system, fingerprint password tool, Google Search, Siri and so on are known as the Narrow AI. On the other hand, AGI is like what we often think about or see in movies, which are programmed and algorithmised just like a human.
If you ever notice, humans have no fear of Narrow AI; instead, they welcome them. But when it comes to the AGI which is well-known as the Stronger AI, humans are afraid that they would replace them. In fact, there is no need to worry as no matter Narrow AI or AGI, it could actually help us. So here comes the main question, how does AI link to digital publishing, how does it impact the newsroom?
AI can help journalists cover and deliver the news more efficiently by freeing them from routine tasks, identifying patterns in data, and helping surface misinformation
Maximise Output, Increase Efficiency
The presence of AI could be the best and the worst for journalism. At the production end, the media finally entered the automation threshold where robotic journalist could finish news editing and publishing easily within a second.
According to Lisa Gibbs, the Associated Press’ director of news partnerships : “AI can help journalists cover and deliver the news more efficiently by freeing them from routine tasks, identifying patterns in data, and helping surface misinformation.”The AI doesn't only help gigantic organizations, it also helps a number of small organizations. Digital publishers like Forbes, Reuters, The Washington and so on have been using content creation tools to cover and create new stories, compose content, and even detect trends that could signal interesting stories. Tencent Dream Writer has now generated more than 30,000 articles; the world's largest news agency, the Associated Press, began using robotic journalists to write financial reports as early as July 2014.
The average reading time for a text on WeChat Public is just over 80 seconds
Increase readers' focus, Attract readers, Increase Productivity
In the 21st century, traditional reading of pure text becomes more niche, nobody tends to read for a long time just looking at pure text. Pictures and videos begin to rise to mainstream and replace pure text nowadays. According to research, users around the world are experiencing major loss of attention, the average reading time for a text on WeChat Public is just over 80 seconds. Just by reading and looking at pictures, there is also nothing special and nothing that makes the publishing company stand out. But, a video could make a huge change and attract readers, just by a minute's video, readers could be exposed to vast information, which can make them focus and at the same time spread information. However, no matter it's compiling information into an article, creating a new article or even creating a video and editing it takes a long time, which it's not productive at all.
Due to the loss of attention and needs for pictures and videos, AI could actually do the work by turning a text into video easily just within a few seconds. For instance, the newsroom - USA Today partnered with Wibbitz to create a short video of the articles that they have written. Within a few seconds, Wibbitz could actually analyze the whole text content, develop a summary and add a voice-over, add in interesting graphics including photos and background music, producing a video within 5-10 seconds. Easily, a video had been developed by the AI instead of a human being going through the process which takes up to at least 1 day.
Enable human labor to do more challenging work
AI could do simpler and limited work, cover those boring and repetitive job scope and could motivate journalists as they would be assigned with better and more challenging work. For example, during this COVID-19 peak period, journalists had to spend time writing the same article but just report according to the trend and change the figures, which is a boring job scope. If this were to be covered by AI in a single algorithm or format, human labor could focus more on complex and challenging news that robots couldn't be able to justify or carry out. It can help journalists find stories by sifting large amounts of information, amplify information, make humans work easier. The Associated Press says that the presence of AI and its mechanization has helped to free up o 20% of its journalists' time. In this case, it could help simplify journalists' job scope, let them handle more complicated news and reduce their stress, which could make them feel more important and motivate them at the same time.
As an example, the following video below presented by Li LÉstrade, the Head of Content Development, MittMedia, she explained that they found the interest of MittMedia's readers toward real-estate articles. How interesting it is, where their readers are interested in properties sold within their neighborhood, who was the buyer who would become their neighbor, who was the seller and how much was it sold. Therefore, following the trend, the publisher decided to publish articles on every property sold but it wouldn't have made sense for reporters to do that. Reporters could only change figures and names here and there, which could be easily done by an AI. As a result, they created the "Homeowners Bot" to help them out in reporting about real-estate articles since 2017. Within such a short period, the AI Homeowners Bot had done publishing over 10,000 articles, scaled up the production of a publisher, leaving human labour to do more complex work.
Distributing based on the reader's interest, more personalized and specific
Previously, personally distributing or transferring news are right away to all readers, not knowing whether they are interested in it. Nowadays, with the algorithm programmed by programmers in the AI, all news could be directed according to the data collected, knowing that which news genre or what kind of articles each individual is interested in, distributing news in a more specific and personalized way.
References :
2) WNIP
3) BuiltIn
4) Youtube
5) Forbes
6) Mediashift
