A trusted journalist, teacher, and mentor to many reporters, Al Tompkins, started a recent social media post with these words: “It’s happening.”
He’s talking about the worldwide trend of more and more news outlets turning to AI news anchors – computer generated, non-human characters delivering the news, powered by artificial intelligence.
If you want to know what it looks like, check out this video demonstration from a new outlet that’s going all in on AI.
I value Tompkins’ perspective on these kinds of things because he’s not alarmist. It would be all too easy to call this the ‘death’ of our business that is already struggling to keep up with the evolution of how people consume news.
Instead, Tompkins wrote this:
Do I care that my mapping app is not human? Nope, I just want it to be accurate. Alexa gives me information all the time, I know she is not human, but if she is right, that is all I need her to be. They are a utility. As long as they are accurate and as long as I understand they are not human, what’s the ethical rub?
There is no avoiding the fact that AI generated content is an increasing reality in the news business. And accuracy is still king.
But as I think of the major news events in my lifetime, I also remember the feeling of shared humanity with those on the screen who were experiencing the event with me.
When the Challenger exploded soon after it launched in 1986, I was watching on a TV in my grade school classroom. The news anchor who came on was processing the shock of it all just as we were.
Watching election night in 2000 until the early morning hours, Dan Rather was making some terrible puns, but it gave me a sense of comfort to know that even he was struggling to make sense of what was happening.
When the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil happened a year later, I still remember how so many of those covering the events (including myself) were deeply impacted as Americans and how that informed the way we delivered the news.
Some of the outlets turning to AI-generated anchors insist that real human beings will continue to serve as reporters in the field. But just as the technology improves the way these anchors look and sound, who is to say it won’t also make the use of virtual field reporters more enticing (and cost effective)?
It makes me think of our coverage of the protests, riots, and unrest after the police killing of George Floyd.
Could an entire AI-generated news team have done just as good of a job?