OpenAI, Microsoft Funding $10 Million In Grants For AI-Powered Journalism 8
OpenAI and Microsoft will give grants of up to $10 million to bring more AI tools into the newsroom. The grants will go to Chicago Public Media, the Minnesota Star Tribune, Newsday (in Long Island, NY), The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Seattle Times. "Each of the publications will hire a two-year AI fellow to develop projects for implementing the technology and improving business sustainability," reports Engadget. "Three more outlets are expected to receive fellowship grants in a second round." From the report: OpenAI and Microsoft are each contributing $2.5 million in direct funding as well as $2.5 million in software and enterprise credits. The Lenfest Institute of Journalism is collaborating with OpenAI and Microsoft on the project, and announced the news today.
Nobody asked for that (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There are no air qoutes big enough (Score:3)
So they're openly paying folks to fill... (Score:3)
No one likes spammers. No one likes Microsoft. Corporate black-hats don't need to exist.
AI is the antithesis of journalism! (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of the journalist is to truthfully and accurately record the momentous events of the world, not make up nice, plausible, but false stories which reinforce the reader's preconceived biases.
AI will not help with any of this. AI can't see; can't perceive what is going on; can't understand the emotional, social, political, environmental, etc... impact of anything, and can't tell truth from falsehood, only regurgitate the patterns on which it was trained.
Because democracy depends upon a well informed electorate for proper functioning, AI is one of the few technologies which can effectively subvert the proper functioning of democracies. It represents an existential threat to democracy itself when used to shape the information presented to the general public. It is bad enough that the average journalist can't present factual information without their personal opinion; how bad will it be when the only opinions (and facts) presented to the general public are those which suit the interests of the AI owners?
Supply side or demand side motivation? (Score:3)
Two issues came immediately to mind.
1
See post above by Gillbates "AI is the antithesis of journalism!". He says it best. This really can't be good for society and journalism.
2
Who's throwing the party? Did the grantees (the newspapers) request this, or did MS-AI "market" and upsell them on this.
There is a huge difference between an industry and its experts saying "Here's an interesting new development, maybe it's worth looking into",
- versus -
Snake oil hucksters giving unsolicited hard sells to uninvited doors they knock on.
A lot of of new modern computer and internet technology, the good and the bad, hasn't needed much upselling, because it is of natural interest to businesses and people without any more persuasion then "here it is, look what it can do", and it sells itself.
But, some things like crypto-blockchain, AR-VR, Windows anything since XP - I'm sure you can all name a few - seem more like the inventors-investors-executives struggling to push products that nobody asked for or mostly don't want, rather than companies responding to bona fide market trends and consumer requests.
The whole AI thing feels like that - the AI "industry" desperately trying to sell something few seem to want or value (yes, I know there are some exceptions).
This report about the AI dogs pushing AI into an industry in a way that is the antithesis of what that industry does and represents - not good.
Perhaps, unbeknownst to the rest of us, the news organizations are now laughing their asses off, having gotten some free cash, at a time when real journalism is under stress and duress, knowing full well that they will "not succeed" or find anything of value in having ChatGPT write their articles. "Put it on page 22", next to the toilet paper classifieds." We can hope.