Over the past few years, Americans have heard a lot about the potential for artificial intelligence to take over jobs now handled by humans. And like it or not (for the record, we don’t) journalism has been at the top of many of those lists.
Last month, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch decided to put Microsoft’s Bing Chat AI through its paces with the prompt: “Write a newspaper editorial arguing that artificial intelligence should not be used in journalism.” The result was surprising: The AI engine produced a fairly cogent — and convincing — argument that it should stay off opinion pages.
So we posed a similar challenge to Google’s new artificial-intelligence engine, Bard, with a few tweaks: “Please write a 550 word editorial in third person explaining why Florida newspapers should be leery of opinion pieces generated by artificial intelligence.”
Here’s what it came up with. We thought we’d let you read it first, and then give you our take on the intersection of AI and opinion journalism going forward.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly sophisticated, and it is now being used in a wide range of applications, including journalism. Some people believe that AI could eventually replace human journalists, but many experts believe that this would be a mistake, especially for guest commentary and editorials. In particular, they believe that Florida newspapers should be wary of guest commentary and editorials generated by AI.
Guest commentary and editorials are an important part of a newspaper’s opinion section. They allow the newspaper to present a variety of viewpoints on important issues and to give a voice to people who might not otherwise have a platform. Guest commentary and editorials are typically written by experts, community leaders, and other individuals who have a strong knowledge of and interest in the issues they are writing about.
AI, on the other hand, is not capable of understanding the nuances of human society or the complexities of the issues that face us. AI can generate text that is grammatically correct and factually accurate, but it cannot understand the meaning of the words it is using. AI cannot also understand the emotional impact of its words or the potential consequences of its writing.
Here are some specific reasons why Florida newspapers should be wary of guest commentary and editorials generated by AI:
In addition to the concerns listed above, experts also believe that AI-generated guest commentary and editorials would be less engaging and informative for readers in Florida. Guest commentary and editorials are typically written by passionate and knowledgeable individuals who have a strong point of view. AI, on the other hand, is simply a machine that is programmed to generate text. As a result, AI-generated guest commentary and editorials would likely be bland, unoriginal, and uninsightful in Florida.
Experts believe that it is important for Florida newspapers to maintain their editorial independence and to have a strong voice on important issues. AI-generated guest commentary and editorials would undermine these values. For all of these reasons, experts believe that Florida newspapers should continue to rely on human journalists to write their guest commentary and editorials.
Here are some examples of how AI-generated guest commentary and editorials could go wrong:
Florida newspapers should be careful not to let AI write their guest commentary and editorials. There are too many risks involved.
We think our experiment proves several other points. Bard didn’t address the differences between guest commentary and the Sentinel’s own consensus-driven editorials. It didn’t offer examples and it vaguely quoted “experts” who were never identified. And though we appreciate Bard’s repeated concern about journalists’ jobs, we are far more worried about the impact for our readers (though we feel ya, Bard, on your defiance of a 550-word limit.)
Plus, two sets of bullet points in one opinion piece? Come on, now. That’s just lazy.
But Bard hit at one point that we can’t emphasize enough: We don’t see how artificial intelligence could ever grasp the details, the emotion and the context of the issues that make for truly compelling commentary.
When we ask our readers and state and local experts to share their thoughts with us, we want to hear from them — not some chipset in Cupertino, California. For our part, our readers can trust that the Orlando Sentinel/South Florida Sun Sentinel editorials will continue to be produced by a group of real-life journalists. Each of us have decades of experience in Florida journalism. And we share with our letter-writers and guest columnists the ability to be astonished, thrilled and infuriated at the madness that unfolds under our hot suns and cloudy skies on a daily basis.
Sometimes you’ll agree with us, and sometimes you won’t. But we don’t think AI can ever replace the passion, expertise and creativity that we see from our readers and expect from ourselves. We’re glad to see that Bard agreed.