ChatGPT, Google Gemini, the list goes on… You have no doubt already heard all about all of these new services that will use AI to write just about anything for you. Well, a new industry report reveals growing concerns among both audiences and journalists about the impact of generative artificial intelligence (AI) on journalism.
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The Generative AI & Journalism report, led by RMIT, compiles three years of research and was unveiled today at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society.
Report lead author, Dr T.J. Thomson from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, said the potential of AI-generated or edited content to mislead or deceive was of most concern.
“The concern of AI being used to spread misleading or deceptive content topped the list of challenges for both journalists and news audiences,” he said.
“We found journalists are poorly equipped to identify AI-generated or edited content, leaving them open to unknowingly propelling this content to their audiences.”
This is partly because few newsrooms have systematic processes in place for vetting user-generated or community contributed visual material.
Most journalists interviewed were not aware of the extent to which AI is increasingly and often invisibly being integrated into both cameras and image or video editing and processing software.
“AI is sometimes being used without the journalists or news outlet even knowing,” Thompson said.
While only one quarter of news audiences surveyed thought they had encountered generative AI in journalism, about half were unsure or suspected they had.
“This points to a potential lack of transparency from news organizations when they use generative AI or to a lack of trust between news outlets and audiences,” Thomson said.
Thomson said news audiences and journalists alike were overall concerned about how news organizations are – and could be – using generative AI.
“Most of our participants were comfortable with turning to AI to create icons for an infographic but quite uncomfortable with the idea of an AI avatar presenting the news, for example,” he said.
So hopefully someday soon the different AI services will be perfected. Oh, wait! Actually, we hope not. Unless this is being written by…
