Financial Times interview: AI's impacts on the media sector

The Financial Times interviewed me on AI’s impact on the media sector! The article is here. My full interview, from which my quotes are taken, is below.

➤ Thank you, Hannah Murphy, for a great interview and article!

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➤ What is emerging as the main use cases for AI in the media sector?

💻The main use cases for AI that are specific to the media include the generation of text, editing, copyediting, AI-assisted research, and image generation. 

💻In addition, AI-enabled tools may assist in the operations of media organizations, as they do in other kinds of organizations, including AI use in HR and IT. 

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➤ What new jobs will be created in media by AI versus old jobs that will be replaced?

🙅Jobs that are more likely to be replaced or negatively impacted include editing and copywriting jobs, as generative AI is already relatively strong in these domains.

🙋I expect new jobs to involve the mitigation of the risks and shortcomings of AI tools, especially generative AI tools. 

🙋For example, currently, one of the greatest shortcomings of AI-generated texts is the lack of accuracy, as they often contain arithmetic, factual, and other mistakes. If the problem of inaccuracy persists, there may be an increased demand for fact-checkers, and their work may be more challenging and important than ever as the internet gets flooded with more and more AI-generated false information. 

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➤ What are the ethics considerations that companies and governments must address as this shift takes place?

🤥 When it comes to AI use in media, it is crucial for companies and governments to address the risks of false information. 

🤥 For example, what if a media outlet prints an AI-generated article that contains false or defamatory claims about an individual? What if they print photos that portray events that never took place? 

🤥It is essential to establish liability structures that incentivize media organizations to decrease the likelihood of mistakes of this kind. 

🤥 Without effective mechanisms to prevent false information in the media, we will lose important sources of credible information and it is unclear what could replace them. The consequences of such a loss would be dramatic and may even include social and political instability.

⚔️ Moreover, establishing guardrails to prevent disinformation from bad actors is also of the utmost importance. 

⚔️ Today, generative AI allows people to generate texts in the style of media outlets of their choosing. In this way, people can produce what looks like an article by the Financial Times or any other media outlet. These fake articles may contain false and harmful information with the perceived credibility of a respected media site. 

⚔️ To prevent this from happening, companies and governments should require media outlets to mark their content in a way that readers can confirm what truly comes from them. 

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➤ Comments welcome! Join the discussion in the LinkedIn post.