journalists

The technology raises concerns about whether it can be trusted to provide accurate reports and whether it could lead to human journalists losing jobs in a sector that is already suffering financially.

Leaders of The New York Times, The Washington Post and News Corp., owners of The Wall Street Journal, have been briefed on what Google is working on, the Times reported Thursday.

In a statement, Google said that tools enhanced with artificial intelligence can help give journalists headline options or different writing styles when they are working on a story, characterizing it as a way to improve work.

"These tools are not intended to and cannot replace the essential role that journalists have in reporting, creating and fact-checking their articles," Google emphasized.
The Associated Press (AP), which declined to comment Thursday on what it knows about Google's technology, has been using a simpler form of artificial intelligence in some of its work for a decade, such as using automation to help create stories about routine sports results and corporate earnings.

Last week, AP and OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, announced an agreement for the artificial intelligence company to license AP's news archive going back to 1985.

In an ideal world, technologies like the one Google is discussing could aggregate important information for the world, said Kelly McBride, an expert in journalistic ethics at the Poynter Institute. These technologies could also document public meetings where there are no human journalists left to participate and create narratives about what is happening, she said.

But there is a likelihood that technology will progress faster than a new business model can be discovered to support local news, creating the temptation to replace human journalists with AI tools, I warn. (NM