The 4th Industrial Revolution with its technologies and especially with the applications of artificial intelligence technology has entered the lives of people, bringing enormous challenges but also great chances in various sectors such as the financial markets, health, biotechnology, education, defence, information, media, etc.
At the same time employees in these industries are worrying about their future employment. Journalists belong in this group of employees which worry most about their future jobs.
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Technology develops with fast but steady steps
The technology of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its applications is nothing more than the continuity of the technological grind that mankind has experienced in the last 15-20 years.
The innovation of internet technology has brought the first real revolution in communications by networking the entire planet with the minimum possible cost of communication on an individual level and always what existed until then in relation with the other means of communication i.e. telephone and fax. The adoption of the internet by the media and journalists made it easier to access and distribute information.
Then came into our lives the social networks where everyone had to make and the corresponding adaptations and adjustments to them in order to be able to use them as tools of mass and individual information equally and always as low-cost communication.
Today is the artificial intelligence and its applications in the field of media, which takes baton from social networks, leading to the new technological upgrade that will be experienced in the coming years both the media and their workers-journalists and their readerships.
Artificial Intelligence and journalism
The cliché that is customary to hear that artificial intelligence is nothing more than a robot that will be used to replace man by taking his job is completely wrong.
Artificial intelligence is nothing more than a set of ideas, techniques and above all technologies that drastically develop the ability of a PC system in order to execute specific commands based on specific data, where under other conditions the absence of artificial intelligence would require the use of human intelligence.
In short, all these applications of artificial intelligence are complementary and ancillary to the duties and tasks of the journalist, helping him to achieve even better results in his work in a minimum time period.
No technology can perform work without human intervention. Even areas of news that can be performed automatically by the PC, such as weather forecasts, there should always be the presence of the human factor in order to avoid mistakes where the one can cause through the use algorithm for weather forecasts.
In this way the new technology of artificial intelligence creates new jobs (new opportunities-chances) for skilled technicians, knowledgeable about this technology. But as long there is a lack of knowledge on this subject, and especially how this technology will be used properly in order to maximise the potential of journalists, there will always be a bias and fear of what the future holds.
Questions that need answers from the implementation of the AI by journalists
1. The issues of transparency, ethics and control are several crucial issues that should fall on the table in the debates of journalists and media.
What happens when a false information is generated as the algorithm of artificial intelligence to produce a story is based on specific data? If the data includes “garbage” then the “garbage in – garbage out” method will apply for media in their generated news, while creating and serious discriminatory drafting issues that will remove such existing customers-readers or potential customers.
What is the legal framework that defines who chooses the data and what data is imported for use by the algorithm?
2. How the media and the associations of journalists will come to terms with the great technological giants of the internet and social networks in terms of ownership of information, in times when the revenues of media are declining?
Although the journalist and the media in general can obtain the information and the news but in the present time and as we move forward in the future the rapid distribution of this information and news will increasingly need the large companies of internet and social networks equally and since the most dynamic consumer public uses these means.
Even if you possess the information and/or the news as a journalist, if this information cannot be disseminated/distributed quickly to the public, then the journalist is in a situation that is as if he does not have/possesses this information and news.
3. As technological giants such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook etc. possess and develop artificial intelligence technology, how will the media react when they will increasingly dependent on this technology while the owners of this technology will be able to exclude silently and systematically information from specific media?
4. Since artificial intelligence technology can distribute in a very cheap way globally the news and more generally the information, while technology of artificial intelligence is held also by the technological giants, how will the media industry, the public and the governments of the countries in general will react, when in the future a technological colossus acquire a particular media company?
In this case, is created a corporate and technological scheme that will include the acquisition of news- primary possession of information-(media) and its subsequent distribution (internet, social networks, etc.) globally, without the news distributor-the new scheme being dependent on the total of the media industry in order to possess first the information.
The advantages of applying artificial intelligence technology to the media
The artificial intelligence and its applications achieve:
1. Optimizing the content of the news.
2. Full help to journalists to control the accuracy of information by avoiding the reproduction of false and fake news.
3. The maximization of the benefits to journalists who specialize and work in the research journalism field.
4. The speedy transcript and/or translation of texts.
5. The optimum collection of data from the readership through its preferences for each type of article, which collective data will then help the media to target very accurately what the readership is interested in and how it wants to they present the information.
6. The gradual elimination and exclusion of useless information.
The future of journalists with artificial intelligence technology
The journalists who will adapt as soon as possible to these developments will be able not to fear their new working developments that will be shaped in their workplace by the applications of artificial intelligence.
It is essentially to understand that the journalists themselves and their actions are those who will choose if the applications of artificial intelligence will become another valuable tool for their work, or they will become their working nightmares.
But journalists cannot achieve this difficult adjustment on their own. They need important and substantial help from the companies themselves-media in which they work.
It is highly obligatory to create on a solid basis seminar for learning, familiarization and easy adaptation of journalists to the applications of artificial intelligence.
At the same time, media should have a specific strategic plan as to where and how they should invest in the use and future upgrading of artificial intelligence applications and always based their decisions on the minimum cost/maximum benefit relation.
In all these cases, better results will be achieved for both media and individual journalists. In any case, investigative-research journalism and interviews will be the flagship of the media activities, since the use of artificial intelligence will eliminate the “sofa” journalists who expect everything to come ready on the couch-sofa where they sit.
The best journalism, the most accurate information is the one that achieves the best and greatest degree of control of power, protecting the non-known citizen from any attempts of arbitrariness against him.
Thanos S. Chonthrogiannis
