The evolution of artificial intelligence is exciting to many, but it also causes a fair amount of fear.
That makes sense: AI can now complete tasks previously possible only by humans — but in seconds rather than weeks. It can create images from scratch, synthesize entire libraries of information in moments, and it can create a realistic human that tells you what you want to hear.
Technological innovation is always disruptive. From fire to the automobile to the internet, it’s wise to think deeply about what these types of changes mean and how they should be used.
The Oglethorpe Echo recently received a grant to do just that.
We are one of 35 news organizations in the world, and only five in the U.S., to receive support and funding from JournalismAI and the Google News Initiative to build AI-driven help for local news and news-academic partnerships.
Our plan is to create specific tools for newsroom efficiencies to help our team of reporters and editors.
We are still in the research and development stage, but ideas include tools that would help our young reporters check their work for proper journalistic grammar and style, create summaries and possible questions throughout the interview process, craft social media and newsletter content faster, and allow our new reporters (who we bring in every four months) to get “up to speed” on their beat more quickly and accurately.
There’s tremendous opportunity, but we want to be realistic, too.
We will not allow anyone in Oglethorpe County to be directly served content created by AI. We see this as a “human firewall.”
Our reporters and editors will use AI to help them, but AI will not be used to communicate the news and information you need about the county.
Our staff has already used AI in small ways: when reporters record interviews, transcriptions are often AI-powered. When we write headlines and use keywords for our website, we often use an app called YESEO to help The Echo’s search results appear higher in a Google search, so our fact-checked, ethical information appears first.
But it’s that word — ethics — that will drive our work in this process.
We will be guided by our mission statement, which is “to serve as the legal organ of Oglethorpe County and provide accurate, quality reporting about the people, events and places within the county for our audience. The Echo is nonpartisan, editorially independent and adheres to the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics.”
The Echo is excited to step fearlessly into the future in a way that is responsible, ethical and meaningful to you, the people of Oglethorpe County.