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It’s impossible to overstate the transformative impact that generative AI will have on newsrooms.
In its best applications, it can help dramatically lighten the load of journalists’ more mundane and time-consuming tasks, freeing them up to do more reporting in the field. Think versioning content across multimedia, for instance. And for on-air journalists who feel shakier in their writing skills, it can aid in writing versions of their stories, helping them level up.
On the flip side, this fast-learning technology can also potentially elbow staffers out of newsrooms. AI-composed content can, unlabeled, deceive audiences. And in AI, bad actors looking to propagate misinformation have a tool that greatly expedites — and improves the quality of — their nefarious work.
Laura Ellis, head of technology forecasting at the BBC, is one of the media industry’s best-informed experts on the minute-by-minute developments in generative AI and how they will impact the industry. In this Talking TV conversation, she lays out the likeliest ways in which it will transform newsrooms and recast the role of the journalist. She also shares her greatest concerns for the harm it can do and how news organizations should best position themselves to keep informed, test new AI applications and ultimately implement — or veer away from — the array of capacities it can offer.
Episode transcript below, edited for clarity.
Michael Depp: AI has been woven into broadcast technology for years, but the development of generative AI has taken it to an entirely new level. I’m
