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Google tests A.I. tool that is able to write news articles

nytimes.com

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Re: Google tests A.I. tool that is able to write news articles

#31

Post by tivert »

shoubidouwah wrote: post #13
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #7

I’d love to hear somebody try to explain how this won’t negatively impact the labor market for journalists. My guess is that the argument will be that the “tools will simply help augment rather than replace the writer.” We know, however, that some small segment of implementations will actually in fact, cause someone to be fired or replaced, and things will get slightly worse for the consumer. An alternative explanati…

I think there's a difference between the concept of journalism and content creation / copywriting. Both come from the same school programs in a way, but while the latter is pretty trivially replaced by AI, the former is a combination of curiosity, multi-step investigation, physical ferreting of information and sensations, and emotionally charged writing to get a point across in a way that is recognizable as art when…

> the whole industry collapses in on itself, taking opinion pieces with it.

That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Opinion pieces will be the last to go, after everything of value has been destroyed.

And honestly, not all opinion pieces are bad. Most are crap partisan hackery and outrage-bait, but some are very valuable (e.g. those unconnected with ideological bickering, those struggling to explain a point of view to hostile audiences, those "swimming against the tide," etc.).

Re: Google tests A.I. tool that is able to write news articles

#32

Post by baron816 »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #7

I’d love to hear somebody try to explain how this won’t negatively impact the labor market for journalists. My guess is that the argument will be that the “tools will simply help augment rather than replace the writer.” We know, however, that some small segment of implementations will actually in fact, cause someone to be fired or replaced, and things will get slightly worse for the consumer. An alternative explanati…

There's a lot of work journalists want to do, but just don't have the capacity for because these types of articles take precedence. It could higher value, but riskier/time intensive work (ie investigative work). It's possible that news rooms will be able to generate more content like this and provide them that profit buffer to then allow their human journalists to go pursue more complex stories.

I have no idea though. Predictions are hard to make, especially when they're about the future.

Re: Google tests A.I. tool that is able to write news articles

#33

Post by AndrewKemendo »

solardev wrote: post #29
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How many humans do you want employed as butter churners? More than exist today probably. We should not be regularly eliminating slightly less efficient processes that use human workers, for completely alienated processes that are worse, that use fewer workers. Self checkout is a perfect example of this. It’s worse for everyone except for grocery store owners.

As a shopper, self checkout is wonderful . It's so much faster and easier than waiting for a single cashier or two. Especially the ones with a scan gun, so you don't have to fight the stupid countertop scanner. As for lost jobs, should we really be propping up unnecessary jobs that really don't do much except poorly substituting a machine? Whether it's checkout or journalism or coding or politics... if a computer can…

>why not let it and free up the human for other things?

Cause this has never been the majority outcome in the history of technology

The outcome in 90%? of mechanization/automation is not upskilling - it’s displacement.

Work gets outsourced to cheaper labor areas or you’re now a baby sitter instead of a tradesperson that is more easily replaced because you have few skills.

All the “meritocracy” goes out the window when there’s no need for human expertise - so everyone is the same faceless commodity that simply enforces the rules of whatever mechanical system they are now monitoring.

At the end of the day, where once a person went to be a cashier for 8-10 hours a day having conversations and fixing problems and helping people - now you’re on your own waiting for the one person who is running the self-checkout to come over and fix the weight error because you thought you typed in the UPC for a pear but you accidentally typed the UPC for a watermelon and the system required human assistance

Everything is worse and you’re doing someone else’s labor and they now have fewer job options.

Re: Google tests A.I. tool that is able to write news articles

#34

Post by carlosjobim »

solardev wrote: post #30
carlosjobim wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a person is a journalist, then that person has the capacity to conduct investigations, make interviews and such things that an AI can never do. If the person is only able to make re-writes, then he or she is not a journalist. If the AI is good at making rewrites, that will free up time for journalists to focus on making more quality reporting.

We're probably not very far away from an AI being able to email and make calls and do those interviews. Or create a Zoom avatar for itself. Is it going to produce Pulutzwr-winning articles right off the bat? Probably not. But I could easily see it replacing the more mundane everyday articles, especially when it's just regurgitating some press release or new study or product launch.

There's a whole other dynamic when a person interviews another person that AI can't replace. I don't see it as feasible. Every interview is voluntary, you can't force anybody to be interviewed by an AI and most subjects would decline. Those who accepted to be interviewed by an AI would be seen as people basically interviewing themselves.

"when it's just regurgitating some press release or new study or product launch."

Maybe news media should start moving away from this model? They can link to the press release and be done with it. The valuable thing they do is their own reporting and investigating.

Re: Google tests A.I. tool that is able to write news articles

#35

Post by echelon »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #33
solardev wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a shopper, self checkout is wonderful . It's so much faster and easier than waiting for a single cashier or two. Especially the ones with a scan gun, so you don't have to fight the stupid countertop scanner. As for lost jobs, should we really be propping up unnecessary jobs that really don't do much except poorly substituting a machine? Whether it's checkout or journalism or coding or politics... if a computer can…

>why not let it and free up the human for other things? Cause this has never been the majority outcome in the history of technology The outcome in 90%? of mechanization/automation is not upskilling - it’s displacement. Work gets outsourced to cheaper labor areas or you’re now a baby sitter instead of a tradesperson that is more easily replaced because you have few skills. All the “meritocracy” goes out the window whe…

> > why not let it and free up the human for other things?

> Cause this has never been the majority outcome in the history of technology

Work isn't disappearing.

The US has great employment numbers that have been stable except for a few systemic shocks. With globalization, more people worldwide have been employed and lifted out of poverty than ever before.

Would you rather pull a random job out of a hat from today or fifty to a hundred years ago?

Self-employment is also a rising labor trend. What's more fulfilling than being your own boss?

Re: Google tests A.I. tool that is able to write news articles

#37

Post by solardev »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #33
solardev wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a shopper, self checkout is wonderful . It's so much faster and easier than waiting for a single cashier or two. Especially the ones with a scan gun, so you don't have to fight the stupid countertop scanner. As for lost jobs, should we really be propping up unnecessary jobs that really don't do much except poorly substituting a machine? Whether it's checkout or journalism or coding or politics... if a computer can…

>why not let it and free up the human for other things? Cause this has never been the majority outcome in the history of technology The outcome in 90%? of mechanization/automation is not upskilling - it’s displacement. Work gets outsourced to cheaper labor areas or you’re now a baby sitter instead of a tradesperson that is more easily replaced because you have few skills. All the “meritocracy” goes out the window whe…

In years of using self checkout, I've required human assistance only a handful of times, maybe 3 or 4 minutes total over all the years. That's still a huge improvement over waiting for cashiers. Perhaps your experiences were different, but for me they are a godsend. That's not really the point though.

About the jobs, yes, we are in agreement about the displacement. I'm saying we need better systems to deal with that displacement at the social/national level, not at the micro level of an individual job going away one at a time.

There's just no way capitalist companies are going to keep unnecessary labor employed. Staff are a cost that eat away at profits. I'm not saying that's a nice way to think about it, but that's how they work, and unless we can directly tackle that part of the mindset (that humans are there just as an input to some owner's dollars out), we won't really solve the issue. Bandaiding them through forced employment laws won't really work as our companies just become less efficient and companies outsource. You can't really have a protected economy like that unless you're also willing to limit outsourcing (which I'd be for, but capitalists who control the government aren't).

I would love to get paid a living wage doing something less brain-wracking than coding (like journalism or barista-ing). But our economic system doesn't make that easy, or even possible. It's going to get worse over time without deep structural change...

Re: Google tests A.I. tool that is able to write news articles

#38

Post by AndrewKemendo »

davidguetta wrote: post #24
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #7

I’d love to hear somebody try to explain how this won’t negatively impact the labor market for journalists. My guess is that the argument will be that the “tools will simply help augment rather than replace the writer.” We know, however, that some small segment of implementations will actually in fact, cause someone to be fired or replaced, and things will get slightly worse for the consumer. An alternative explanati…

That doesn't matter in the end. 1/ Technology has always disrupted labor market so I mean that's not even a question this will happen. 2/ It's not that sad: I've worked in journaism and the reality is that 80% of news article are already most of the time a sad copypasta of a single main source of info such as reuters / AFP in france. Most of journalism is already noise. Maybe that will help recenter journalism on rea…

>That doesn't matter in the end.

Doesn't matter to who?

I'm pretty sure it matters a lot to people working in a newsroom

Re: Google tests A.I. tool that is able to write news articles

#39

Post by solardev »

carlosjobim wrote: post #34
solardev wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're probably not very far away from an AI being able to email and make calls and do those interviews. Or create a Zoom avatar for itself. Is it going to produce Pulutzwr-winning articles right off the bat? Probably not. But I could easily see it replacing the more mundane everyday articles, especially when it's just regurgitating some press release or new study or product launch.

There's a whole other dynamic when a person interviews another person that AI can't replace. I don't see it as feasible. Every interview is voluntary, you can't force anybody to be interviewed by an AI and most subjects would decline. Those who accepted to be interviewed by an AI would be seen as people basically interviewing themselves. "when it's just regurgitating some press release or new study or product launch.…

I doubt the AI would voluntarily self identify as such, unless we force it to. Some of the interviewees may never know the difference.

But yeah agreed, wish papers just republished wire stories or press releases and spent what little staff they still have on original (ideally local) reporting.

Re: Google tests A.I. tool that is able to write news articles

#40

Post by nonameiguess »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #7

I’d love to hear somebody try to explain how this won’t negatively impact the labor market for journalists. My guess is that the argument will be that the “tools will simply help augment rather than replace the writer.” We know, however, that some small segment of implementations will actually in fact, cause someone to be fired or replaced, and things will get slightly worse for the consumer. An alternative explanati…

This has already been said, though you seemingly didn't like it. A journalist is not the same thing as a writer. They develop ideas, conduct investigations, interview subjects and witnesses, travel to locations, check and verify the work of other journalists by calling sources to see if they're told the same thing the second time. They maintain relationships with sources.

Let's imagine that, currently, a journalist spends 50% of their time conducting investigations and 50% of their time sitting at a keyboard typing up their findings. The ideal hope for a technology like this is the future then consists of 90% of a journalist's time being spent conducting investigations and 10% telling a text generator to type up the findings for them and cleaning it up. Overall, more time spent investigating and following up should result in higher-quality, more interesting work.

It may appear to consumers at our end that the work of a journalist is just writing because the writing is all we see, but this is not the case.

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