11 Quotes Worth Reading about AI in the Newsroom from Recent Articles

The Associated Press today released guidance on how it uses generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and will update its AP Stylebook to reflect a new era for newsrooms. While AP staff may experiment with ChatGPT with caution, they do not use it to create publishable content,” according to the standards. “Any output from a generative AI tool should be treated as unvetted source material.” Poynter  

How Will Artificial Intelligence Change the News Business? Here are three theories of the case. NY  Mag

A multitude of leading newsrooms have recently injected code into their websites that blocks OpenAI’s web crawler, GPTBot, from scanning their platforms for content. The deep archives and intellectual property rights of these news organizations are immensely valuable — arguably crucial — to training A.I. models such as ChatGPT in efforts to provide users with accurate information. Meanwhile, the Associated Press went a different route, hammering out its own licensing deal with the A.I. developer, though it notably did not share key terms of the agreement. CNN

Wired magazine has a page dedicated to explaining how its journalists use AI tools (to suggest headlines or potential cuts to shorten a story, the policy states) and how they don’t (no AI-generated images instead of stock photos, according to the policy). Wired makes it clear to readers that these policies may change as the technology does. Poynter 

Ultimately, AI is a prism. Information goes into it and the bot can refract a spectrum of stories and simulated perspectives, but it may also distort those views, missing the nuances and human elements that give local news its heart and soul. Understanding and staying abreast of these technological developments is crucial, but so is maintaining a healthy skepticism. Joe Amditis on Medium

Lede AI (was developed) to help newsrooms cover sports games they would have otherwise missed. Lede AI draws from a national database of sports results submitted by fans to generate short articles that are automatically published after a game ends. the AI-written summaries sometimes missed “factual nuances” in stories, and the AI-generated text could be “corny” and repetitive. Poynter 

OpenAI, the parent company to ChatGPT, will fund a new journalism ethics initiative at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute with a $395,000 grant. Axios

Several news organizations, writers and photographers groups are pushing to be involved in creating standards for the use of artificial intelligence, particularly as it concerns intellectual property rights and the potential spread of misinformation. Associated Press

The 'Irish Times' mistakenly publishes fake article written by AI. The person behind the deception, whose identity remains unknown, had used an artificial intelligence (AI) program to create the text and images of the writer.  Le Monde

A new, completely AI-driven website called the LocalLens wants to be a kind of metal detector for local news — claiming to surface stories that might otherwise remain buried. Joe Amditis writing on Medium

The New York Times has decided not to join a group of media companies attempting to jointly negotiate with the major tech companies over use of their content to power artificial intelligence. Semafor