AI-Authored Content: The New Norm?

The presence of journalism and journalistic products dates back to as early as 59 BCE. The journalism field has been the one to ensure that evolutions in all sectors were inscribed and given a place in the records for a lifetime. This doesn’t mean that journalism in itself didn’t go through enough innovations. One of the most prominent and recent innovations in this field was the introduction of AI-authored content in the news ecosystem.

This article focuses on a thorough analysis of the presence of AI-authored content in the news ecosystem and its potential extent and impact.

Rise of AI in Journalism

The most recent and significant innovation in Journalism was the rise of AI in the news realm. The numbers indicating the presence of AI-authored content in the news ecosystem have been rising with each passing month. This innovation is responsible for bringing about a fundamental change in the workings of the news ecosystem.

Such innovations bring along a wave of opportunities for scaling content creation and increasing efficiency. But accompanying it is a set of problems that one must face to benefit from the opportunities presented. One of the significant problems is the false information that AI spreads. This not only hinders the quality of news articles but can deteriorate things for the future as well.

That brings us to an important question: whether AI-authored content is the new norm? Or is all of this just a passing facade?

To find answers to the given question, we will first analyze the possible impacts of AI on the news ecosystem.

Rise of AI: In Favor

The first aspect for analysis is the positive impacts of AI in and on the news ecosystem, collectively. As important as the innovation itself is to the given field, accepting the innovations and adapting accordingly is equally crucial. The rise of AI in the news ecosystem is bringing in some great opportunities, some of which are given below.

1. Efficient handling of grunts or repetitive work

During content creation, especially in the journalism realm, the process of content writing includes thorough research on topics or going through ample data as a necessary first step. This in turn can turn repetitive and is boring, for instance, when curating content related to elections or COVID-19. This can further deteriorate the writer’s efficiency and hamper workflow.
AI is being trained to carry out repetitive tasks like generating basic reports for routine events. In situations like this, AI poses as a perfect candidate to avoid grunt work and focus on more important aspects of the content they are working on.

2. Scaling Content Creation

The process of content creation starts with the planning of content creation and ends with managing whatever content has already been published. This process can often become tiresome, with research, analysis, and writing all taking place simultaneously. Thus reducing the speed and efficiency of the employee and, in some cases, being confusing.

To redeem employees from such situations, AI has proven to be a brilliant alternative. AI is programmed in such a manner that it can analyze and give quick and effective solutions. This feature is especially useful when a business has a large product line.

3. Sentiment Analysis 

Content creation is more than just researching and writing articles. Analysis plays a crucial role in the shaping of the whole article. An important part of the analysis is identifying the overall tone and gauging the public reaction. However, the major hindrance to this step of content creation is that this analysis might differ from person to person. There is also always the possibility of the analysis being affected by the personal bias of the individual in question.

Situations like this can be easily avoided by using the AI model for analysis. The AI models are being trained to analyze the sentiments of the content and discussions to identify emerging trends and gauge public reactions.

4. 24/7 Availability

One of the major drawbacks of the deployment of a physical workforce is that they can’t be available 24/7. There ought to be times when the work would need to be put on hold to accommodate the absence of the employee.

Unlike the physical workforce, AI chat bots are available 24/7 globally. They are trained in such a way that they can answer any queries asked and make summaries of new stories around the clock.

5. Cost Efficient

The traditional employment of the physical workforce comes with its own set of drawbacks. The employment of the workforce requires one to make sufficient investments in several factors, such as land, electricity, etc. The return on such investments might not be as much as one would expect them to be. These expenses tend to be on the higher side for new businesses or small-scale businesses.

To help businesses save on such costs, AI can be considered a great alternative. Automating a few tasks can save businesses from hiring additional staff. Thus reducing the production costs.

Rise of AI: In Opposition 

The second and equally important aspect is the negative impacts of AI in and on news ecosystems, collectively. With newer innovations comes a price that people pay to stay in tune with the trends and latest technology. This price can be in terms of the moral aspect, the creative aspect, or the psychological aspect. The rise of AI in the news ecosystem has brought some trouble along the way, some of which are given below.

1. Ethical Concerns

The AI is designed and trained in such a way that it tends to blur lines between certain ethical codes of conduct. Moreover, the use of AI in the news ecosystem itself raises certain ethical concerns related to who gets to control the algorithms and the potential threat of AI being manipulated for the wrong reasons. With the use of AI-authored content, the AI can push certain agendas and news articles or spread misinformation.

The scenario would have been different if the task in question had been assigned to a human. This is so because, in the case of AI, it presents and frames certain stories or news articles based on pushing certain agendas, which might hinder other article’s chances of being read by the audience.

2. Vicious Cycle of False Information

The news generated by AI bots tends to spread false or misleading information, which further hampers the reliability of the news articles as well as the news channels and organizations. These articles and headlines then become part of the vast ocean of information present.

Eventually, the content available is mainly the false information that was fed to the system over some time. This content then proceeds to become the source of information AI feeds on. Ultimately, this leads to the creation of a vicious cycle of false and misleading information.

3. Lack of Human Touch

The AI-generated content doesn’t involve human essence in any form or at any step. One way to look at things is the necessity of keeping humans out of it to ensure lesser response time and efficiency. The other way to look at things is that the loss of human touch causes issues with the tone used for the target audience. Furthermore, grammatical errors and issues with finding the correct brand voice might arise in the process.

You can easily handle and deal with such concerns by involving humans and ensuring a business is not excessively reliant for all the functions.

4. Job Displacement

The excess dependency of businesses, especially new and small business models, on AI-authored content, or AI in general, has led to the eventual replacement of physical manpower with machines. While it might help businesses with cost-cutting, in the long run, this solution might not be feasible, both for the businesses and for society.

The trend of replacing humans with AI caused a huge wave of job displacements, even in powerful countries such as the United States, the eventual United Kingdom, etc. Due to this, society is rather fearful and uncertainty, affecting all sectors of society, especially Journalism. According to the claims of the Hindustan Times, these layoffs will continue to take place in several sectors, which can’t be a good sign for society and its people.

5. Dumbing Down the Content

The AI has been programmed in such a way that most people believe that it simplifies the content to make it easy to understand. This might be feasible in a few cases, but there are situations where you need in-depth and detailed data to ensure efficiency and effectiveness. During the simplification of content, critical facts and the context of the given information or data are left out. This further hampers the decision-making power as well as the reliability of the information and data given by AI.

You can avoid this scenario altogether by ensuring that humans are the ones doing the research and analyzing such critical facts and data.

Rise of AI: The Verdict

Now that we have analyzed both aspects of AI-authored content, we are capable enough to decide whether AI-authored content should be the new norm or not.

The answer to this question remains debatable and might differ for people across sectors. The educational sector has benefited greatly from AI’s existence. It has increasingly been using AI’s features for personalized learning, automated grading, and intelligent tutoring systems. And they have rightfully been using it to push to reduce burdens on teachers and streamline the learning process.

There are also sectors like journalism & the media sector itself that have faced mass layoffs due to the emergence of AI and AI-authored content. Sectors like information and technology itself had to lay off thousands of employees, creating a hostile environment in society. Moreover, the fear of getting trapped in the vicious cycle of false or misleading information is hard to ignore.

So, considering the above facts, it is well understood that we would have to find a middle path to evolve and develop without jeopardizing other factors. The next segment of this blog discusses what could be deemed as the possible middle path for the current situation.

Balancing the Odds

The most viable answer to the question of whether AI is the new norm or not is to find the middle path instead of sticking to one side. Moreover, this technique is found to be successful in many cases, as it helps to balance out the bads of one alternative with the good of the other alternative.

While it is feasible to use AI to carry out mundane tasks to save time and efficiency for the employee, you can ensure accurate information by making sure the employee reviews the content. A human editor can be suffixed towards the end of the research process to ensure that facts are cross-checked and aligned with the general tone and the article’s context.

Moreover, a human editor can help balance out the drawbacks of AI in critical thinking, creative problem-solving, and storytelling. This will ensure that the presence of a human editor balances out the drawbacks of AI, which in the long term can take over repetitive tasks and eliminate unnecessary tasks for the human editor.

An ideal balance between the contenders is what would bring out the maximum efficiency and ensure better results. So, in other words, the long-term solution to the problem is a collaboration between AI and human editors.

Conclusion

With this, we come to the end of a thorough analysis of the impact and extent of AI-authored contempt in the news ecosystem. We hope by now you will be a bit more clear about the impact and extent of AI-authored content and will be able to make better choices for the future.