OpenAI, Microsoft Funding $10 Million In Grants For AI-Powered Journalism
- Reference: 0175304161
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/22/2045216/openai-microsoft-funding-10-million-in-grants-for-ai-powered-journalism
- Source link:
> OpenAI and Microsoft are each contributing $2.5 million in direct funding as well as $2.5 million in software and enterprise credits. The Lenfest Institute of Journalism is collaborating with OpenAI and Microsoft on the project, and [2]announced the news today.
[1] https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-and-microsoft-are-funding-10-million-in-grants-for-ai-powered-journalism-193042213.html
[2] https://www.lenfestinstitute.org/institute-news/lenfest-institute-openai-microsoft-ai-collaborative-fellowship/
There are no air qoutes big enough (Score:3)
to go around the word "journalism" in that headline.
So they're openly paying folks to fill... (Score:3)
So they're openly paying folks to fill the spaces that we go to for journalism, with low resolution algorithmically generated copies of press releases. There's no pretense. Microsoft is going full black-hat.
No one likes spammers. No one likes Microsoft. Corporate black-hats don't need to exist.
AI is the antithesis of journalism! (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of the journalist is to truthfully and accurately record the momentous events of the world, not make up nice, plausible, but false stories which reinforce the reader's preconceived biases.
AI will not help with any of this. AI can't see; can't perceive what is going on; can't understand the emotional, social, political, environmental, etc... impact of anything, and can't tell truth from falsehood, only regurgitate the patterns on which it was trained.
Because democracy depends upon a well informed electorate for proper functioning, AI is one of the few technologies which can effectively subvert the proper functioning of democracies. It represents an existential threat to democracy itself when used to shape the information presented to the general public. It is bad enough that the average journalist can't present factual information without their personal opinion; how bad will it be when the only opinions (and facts) presented to the general public are those which suit the interests of the AI owners?
Supply side or demand side motivation? (Score:2)
Two issues came immediately to mind.
1
See post above by Gillbates "AI is the antithesis of journalism!". He says it best. This really can't be good for society and journalism.
2
Who's throwing the party? Did the grantees (the newspapers) request this, or did MS-AI "market" and upsell them on this.
There is a huge difference between an industry and its experts saying "Here's an interesting new development, maybe it's worth looking into",
- versus -
Snake oil hucksters giving unsolicited hard sells to uninvited
Nobody asked for that (Score:3)
"Here's a story you probably read in three other places, but mashed into slop, with a few hallucinations thrown in, so *we* can get your eyeballs instead."
Re: (Score:2)
Billionaire propagandists like the guys who did [1]Sinclair Media's "Must Run" TV [youtube.com] did.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fHfgU8oMSo
Re: (Score:2)
Backpropagandists, more like it.