Will generative AI undermine journalism?

What are we talking about when we refer to AI? Chat GPT? Deep fake pictures? Google’s Gemini? 

According to Forbes there are 2 forms of AI, the first one being ‘narrow’ or ‘weak’ AI (sorry AI it’s not personal), that ‘focuses on performing a specific task intelligently’. Then we have generative AI that can create something new from the piece of information you gave it. It’s like an imaginative friend who can come up with original, creative content. 

Who started this mess?. The father of AI, is called Geoffrey Hinton. In an interview on the CBS programme 60 minutes, Hinton helped make some stark comments about AI, including the fact that humanity doesn’t really know what it actually does.

But what do we know about AI? It does learn faster than humans, over the span of a few days, AI can process and learn as much information as a child does in 20 years. 

But this learning process is far from ideal. AI can absorb all data from humanity’s online repositories but it still doesn’t have the self-awareness of a two-year old yet. Although, this is something that most likely will develop over time. 

So who brought forward this AI boom? Why is everybody implementing it? 

Companies are afraid of falling behind and commences AI implementation as fast as possible, despite the fact that their industries might not be ready for it. 

AI expert Sayash Kapoor, author of AI snake oil (2024) said in an interview:  

‘AI snake oil is appealing to broken institutions. So when you have an institution that is unable to function as it should, for example when it is overloaded like in the HR department, you have 1000 of applicants for a job, so for that type of institution for an HR person that is put in this position, it’s really easy to say I let AI sort out who the top 10 applicants are and just interview them”

In this episode we try to dig deep into AI’s impact on media and journalism, an industry that might be far from being ready. We talk about the good, the bad and the ugly with our esteemed guests:

Luka Lisjak Gabrijecic is an editor of Eurozine partner journal Razpotja is Slovenian historian, political analyst, essayist and translator. He is also a part of the Eurozine Editorial Board. 

Mustafa Ünlü is a documentary filmmaker and journalist. Chairman of Board of P24 Independent Journalism Platform in Turkey. 

Miriam Rasch is a writer and philosopher, who publishes about ethics of technology, media and literature. She works as research educator at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and a part of the Eurozine editorial board.

Standard Time talk show S2E06: Does AI make us dumb?

Creative team

Réka Kinga Papp, anchor

Daniela Univazo, writer-editor

Merve Akyel, art director, Eurozine

Szilvia Pintér, producer

Priyanka Hutschenreiter, project manager

Julia Sobota, captions and translations

Zsófia Gabriella Papp, digital producer

Management

Judit Csikós, finance

Réka Kinga Papp, editor-in-chief

Csilla Nagyné Kardos, office administration

Video Crew 

Gergely Áron Pápai, photography

Postproduction

Nóra Ruszkai, video editor

István Nagy, lead video editor

Milán Golovics, dialogue editor

Art

Victor Maria Lima, animation

Crypt-of-Insomnia, theme music