The other day, I was reading an obit on Camlin founder Dilip Dhandekar on an online platform. The seemingly well-presented article mentioned how Dandekar was instrumental in transforming Camlin into a household name with its stationery and educational products. As I scrolled down, one line inside the brackets at the bottom caught my attention. “This is an AI-generated article,” the line – or disclaimer – stated. Welcome to the world of artificial intelligence in news media.
While it is an open secret that India’s news media has been experimenting with AI in various forms for quite some time now, the media houses were shying away from openly admitting it, until recently. In the last couple of years, however, they have been more vocal about exploring the latest form of technology that has taken the world by storm.
Hammered by rising operation costs and not-as-lucrative profits, media houses, especially newspapers, are looking at ways and means to cut corners and reduce costs. They see an opportunity in AI, especially generative AI, to save some money to bring some cheer to their balance sheets.
And it is not just about cost-efficiency. AI is claimed to be able to enhance storytelling with tools for summarization, content creation, and translation. It is helpful in design, layout, and workflows, used for image and video enhancement, builds scalability, and discovers new ways to engage with audiences. Not to forget the bot AI anchors, of course. All apart from data analysis, revenue generation, and reader engagement strategies. To be sure, many of these are still under experimentation, or in their early stages of implementation – at least in India.
However, that the media cannot ignore the new tech is obvious from various media conferences and festivals conducted by global organizations such as Wan-Ifra or INMA with AI as a major theme or subject in the past couple of years. This year, for the first time, Wan-ifra organized a dedicated edition in Bengaluru, on artificial intelligence in news media, as we report in this issue of Indian Printer and Publisher. INMA’s South Asia News Media festival in Delhi on July 24-25 further deliberates on AI, its advantages as well as the flip side.
If one were to cite more instances, The Hindu, for example, is utilizing AI to enhance its newsletters to target specific audiences, make its workflows more efficient, and improve analytics and insights. The Scroll is experimenting with AI tools to maximize user’s video experience, extract data, and fact-check.
This year, Wan-Ifra launched a broad-based accelerator program for over 100 news publishers in partnership with OpenAI. The Newsroom AI Catalyst is an accelerator program designed to help newsrooms fast-track their AI adoption and implementation. The media in the West has a head-start in adopting AI for content enhancement and business scalability.
There is, however, an understandable wariness and fear among journalists about whether AI will take away jobs sooner than later, if not immediately. Others worry about the trustworthiness and possible hallucinations of the content generated by AI tools – and whether it has been plagiarized or authenticated. The possible use of AI to spread misinformation is another concern. There is a general feeling or perhaps emotion that artificial intelligence has no conscience, which has hitherto been assumed an essential part of human intelligence.
Many senior journalists and media experts argue that artificial intelligence cannot replace humans as far as content is concerned as the editor’s final nod will always be needed before AI-generated content can be put out for public consumption.
To sum it up, AI, or generative AI in particular is seen as both an opportunity and a possible threat. To be honest, AI may have its cons, and it may even be a failed disruption in some realms in the long run, but one cannot ignore the pros.
Currently, it seems to be a technological evolution that the media feels compelled to investigate, adapt, and adopt. Just as it welcomed, adopted, and adapted to computers over typewriters, hyphenation and justification software using expert systems, page-making software over pasting bromide galleys, CtP over manually imaging offset plates, automated presses, and TV and digital content channels over newspapers. Love or hate it, you cannot ignore it.
