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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

#71

Post by LegitShady »

jonny_eh wrote: post #64
anigbrowl wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a journalist, I hate writing. I like hunting down facts and details, the actual writing part is miserable and boring. There's constant sweating over how much context to include so that the reader is well-informed vs the risk of burying the important stuff. I've never used an LLM to write anything, but I have seriously considered doing a dense infodump and telling it to ask me up to 5 contextual questions before sp…

> There's constant sweating over how much context to include so that the reader is well-informed vs the risk of burying the important stuff Won't help you when you have to edit the AI output because… > Editing other people's stuff is even worse, because many writers aren't burdened by editorial concerns and don't bother to put in the effort to make their story coherent and interesting So in the end, what do you gain?

Sometimes there is value to having someone else write the first draft that you can then edit.

Personally I think this is going to put a lot of journalists out of work. Many of them aren’t investigative journalists and do mostly write, and their days are numbered.

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

#72

Post by AndrewKemendo »

anigbrowl wrote: post #67
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

you’re doing someone else’s labor I'm doing my own labor. Personally I often don't want to have conversations while doing my grocery shopping, especially not the fake corporate kind. Having to have such conversations as an employee of a supermarket was a very unpleasant experience, lacking in dignity. You make a lot of good points, but others are extremely half baked.

Nothing half baked about it

I have regular ongoing relationships with the employees at the Giant (Grocery store) near my house and know their names and who they are as people and they know me and my kids and it's great.

To the extent where together, myself, Sandi (Night Manager), the Asst Manager and some of the staff all worked together to help get a wonderful man back on his feet that was struggling and begging and living outside nearby. (edit:In this case he was begging, and I sat and talked with him about his situation and getting him what he needed for that day. Then I recruited the staff to watch for him and I would leave a bag of food every week but they needed to give it to him, so that's what they did. He ended up moving in with family and I saw him again (at that same Giant) but instead he was shopping with his family and he told me that we all collectively saved his life.)

So yes building community is important and you can do so with the individual people that work within these corporate systems to great effect and for the tangible and measurable benefit of human flourishing today right now.

edit:I can't reply to comments on this for some reason

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

#73

Post by efields »

> Some executives who saw Google’s pitch described it as unsettling, asking not to be identified discussing a confidential matter. Two people said it seemed to take for granted the effort that went into producing accurate and artful news stories.

Google engineers: I'm I so out of touch?

[ beat ]

Ge: No, surely it is the users who are wrong.

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

#74

Post by _djo_ »

baron816 wrote: post #32
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…

That would be true if newsrooms keep the same number of journalists on staff, so that they're freed to conduct more investigative work.

Looking at the trend in global newsrooms and the way they've already been gutted in the name of dividends how likely do you think that's going to be?

More like this will be used as an excuse to cut even more journalists and, worse, to run local and regional news without any journalists at all, with the few who remain being as under pressure and overworked as ever.

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

#75

Post by efields »

thecleaner wrote: post #61

This is so cool. As somebody else also pointed out, journalism is all about the data collection. Say what you will about WikiLeaks, one of the things I liked about them was the whole data dump thingy. I prefer the idea of "Here's the data, make up your mind"

Surely data can never be biased. Most sources of data are honorable. This approach is flawless.

(extremely, heavily italicized and bolded: /s)

[edit: typo]

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

#76

Post by htrp »

tivert wrote: post #31
shoubidouwah wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Opinion pieces will be the last to go, after everything of value has been destroyed.

Wouldn't opinion pieces be the first to go?

We're already in a world where most opinion pieces are part of carefully orchestrated PR campaigns (sometimes even wholly ghostwritten) meant to drive policy discussion in one way or another. If you can AI write this and ascribe it to a reputable source, why wouldn't the industry adopt this as standard?

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

#77

Post by solardev »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #72
anigbrowl wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you’re doing someone else’s labor I'm doing my own labor. Personally I often don't want to have conversations while doing my grocery shopping, especially not the fake corporate kind. Having to have such conversations as an employee of a supermarket was a very unpleasant experience, lacking in dignity. You make a lot of good points, but others are extremely half baked.

Nothing half baked about it I have regular ongoing relationships with the employees at the Giant (Grocery store) near my house and know their names and who they are as people and they know me and my kids and it's great. To the extent where together, myself, Sandi (Night Manager), the Asst Manager and some of the staff all worked together to help get a wonderful man back on his feet that was struggling and begging and…

What is Giant? The bicycle company?

Do you mean you and a few employees there just got together and started, what, a shared pot of money for emergencies? Can you please share more about how that happened (or maybe even a blog post)? I'd love to try something similar.

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

#78

Post by thumbuddy »

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…

Anyone else looking at these things as propaganda machines that have zero liability? "Ewps da AI said to stage a coup again lul sorry we fix it 4 u mb"

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

#79

Post by Loquebantur »

thehappypm wrote: post #52
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…

Journalism is a lot more than just turning press releases and such into articles. In fact, making it cheaper to churn those out will free up money for real journalism — investigations, interviews, analysis, opinions.

No, it won't.

News media today are nothing more but a vehicle to bring attention to advertisement. The majority of people do not read lengthy articles anyway, only headlines. Investigative journalism is wildly expensive and not cost-effective given said objective.

News media are anachronistic anyway. People are stuck in childish and dumbed down variants of "my parents told me so".

What is necessary (and severely lacking) is two-way (or rather, public) communication. Enabling OSINT. Enabling people to form well-founded opinions. To discuss and receive constructive criticism of their views and ideas. Facilitating self-reflection on a society-level.

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

#80

Post by guilamu »

Loquebantur wrote: post #79
thehappypm wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Journalism is a lot more than just turning press releases and such into articles. In fact, making it cheaper to churn those out will free up money for real journalism — investigations, interviews, analysis, opinions.

No, it won't. News media today are nothing more but a vehicle to bring attention to advertisement. The majority of people do not read lengthy articles anyway, only headlines. Investigative journalism is wildly expensive and not cost-effective given said objective. News media are anachronistic anyway. People are stuck in childish and dumbed down variants of "my parents told me so". What is necessary (and severely lack…

'What is necessary (and severely lacking) is two-way communication. Enabling OSINT. Enabling people to form well-founded opinions. To discuss and receive constructive criticism of their views and ideas. Facilitating self-reflection on a society-level. '

Can't agree more, but how? Any insight?

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