News Report

                                                 Will news soon be a chain of codes?

• Sukhjeet Kaur 

Artificial Intelligence, without a doubt, has been the reason many people have lost their jobs. Journalism is one such profession under the radar of unemployment due to AI. In 2020, Microsoft laid off 50 journalists to replace them with robots and claimed that robots would now run their MSN website. This came as a shock to many journalists who were already skeptical about their profession,

Artificial intelligence has a widespread influence on professions like teaching and journalism. AI in Microsoft now handles tasks like producing stories and graphics, verifying data, publishing (sorting, selecting, and prioritization filters), and automatically tagging articles. Even though AI can be an easier task for companies to produce content instead of paying the employees, it can take a toll on the content being produced on their website. 

An employee whom Microsoft laid down said that "the decision to replace humans with software was risky, as the existing staff was careful to stick to "very strict editorial guidelines" which ensured that users were not presented with violent or inappropriate content when opening their browser, of particular importance for younger users." 

A senior journalist at Deccan Herald, Bangalore, commented on this issue, saying, "I don't think a robot will wait outside a washroom to get that one unique news bite from a person. There will be no human touch to the stories if AI starts writing stories. Yes, I agree that there will be jobs like data collection, which will be made easier through it, but AI can never take over complete journalism. Some critical tasks like the production of headlines and analyzing the seriousness of certain communal issues can only be done by human intelligence. " she said. 

Technology has undoubtedly optimized our experience of receiving information by customizing whatever we need. If the reader wants news that is around them, Google AI will automatically fetch it for them. But, AI can only fetch information based on its programming. There will be a time soon when journalists will have to learn an additional skill of coding to stay in the profession. They will program AI to get specific information about a particular region at an exact time instead of them going there. 

An AI researcher commented, "If used properly, it (AI) can greatly support making journalism more effective. It can fetch more reports in a shorter time and be quick and accurate. Even though AI can be less sensitive towards certain triggering content because it practically doesn't know what can be disturbing for human emotions unless we code even human emotions."

Soon, there is very little chance of AI taking over the industry of Journalism, and this is a standard narrative shared by many professionals and people who have been part of this industry for a long time. The writer is sure that an AI software couldn't write this article by referring to so many people, and we can enjoy human-quality journalism before the news becomes a code. 

References

 

Waterson, J. (2020, May 30). Microsoft sacks journalists to replace them with robots. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/may/30/microsoft-sacks-journalists-to-replace-them-with-robots

Chace, C. (2020, August 24). The Impact of AI on Journalism. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/calumchace/2020/08/24/the-impact-of-ai-on-journalism/?sh=5be59bd32c46

Trends, M. (2022, February 4). Artificial Intelligence in Journalism: Where is Media Headed? Analytics Insight. https://www.analyticsinsight.net/artificial-intelligence-in-journalism-where-is-media-headed/

Vivuya, B., Bajec, A., Čizmić, A., González, R., Gibon, C., Reynés, D. M., & Marot, C. (2021, April 6). Artificial intelligence and journalism: a race with machines. Equal Times. https://www.equaltimes.org/artificial-intelligence-and