Artificial intelligence is increasing in capacity and usage at an astounding rate. But its rapid rise has led to existential dilemmas about how best to harness its potential while also ensuring that the human race isn’t overrun by robots who will turn against their masters and run amok over planet Earth.
And newspapers are helping to lead the charge.
While AI can be useful to different degrees in different professions, its usage in media has been alarmingly poor. That’s especially true when it comes to the written word, where AI has fallen well short of being factual, relevant, and anywhere remotely resembling something a human would write.
The poster child of the AI struggle in media has been USA Today Co., formerly Gannett. The company has been blasted for the embarrassing launch of its AI writing program. But it is still pressing forward. Last year, they posted a position for an AI sports editor, which was heavily criticized by its writers’ union.
That battle continued on Wednesday as union workers in newsrooms across the country staged a coordinated lunchtime walkout to protest the continuing advance of AI at the media giant. This move comes after USA Today Co. recently announced a partnership with Palantir to better monetize its products through artificial intelligence.
As those writers and staffers took to social media, many did so under the banner “No slop in our shop.” The writers called on the company to institute guardrails for artificial intelligence usage and focus on ensuring that they would not use generative AI in newsrooms.
Like many traditional media industries, newspapers have struggled in recent years given the shifts in consumer habits and technology. Of course, these staffers are rightfully concerned about what the advance of AI might do to their future careers. And if companies like USA Today Co. are purely looking at the bottom line and trying to survive, then they may explore more desperate moves to cut corners on sports coverage, as we have seen before.
But there are some things that AI just can’t duplicate, and writing about sports is one of them. No matter how powerful AI may become, sports is an inherently human venture. The feelings and emotions that sports evoke are among the central reasons they are so important to people in all places and at all times. And we all deserve to keep that human connection unbroken.
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