The impact of artificial intelligence on journalism is growing
Báo Tin Tức•21/08/2024
On August 21, in Ha Long city (Quang Ninh province), the Center for Journalism Training (Vietnam Journalists Association) held a workshop with the theme: "Impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on journalism: Challenges and opportunities".
Speaking at the workshop, Ms. Nguyen Thi Hai Van, Director of the Center for Journalism Training, said that AI can help synthesize and analyze data more quickly, helping journalists save time and effort in the process of researching and producing news and articles. In addition, the successful implementation of AI in the newsroom will help personalize content to suit the interests and needs of each reader, thereby increasing the interactivity and attractiveness of press products. Thanks to that, journalists will bring readers the news they want, in a more personal way and covering more topics. “However, the challenges that AI brings are not small. One of the biggest challenges that AI brings is the creation and spread of fake news. AI has the ability to learn from huge data patterns and create new content based on those patterns. Modern AI models such as GPT-3 and GPT-4 are capable of generating very convincing text based on some basic input information. These models can generate fake articles or news stories with detailed and fluent content, making it difficult for readers to recognize that they are fake news. In addition, deep-fake technology uses AI to create fake videos and images, in which viewers can see images or videos of completely unreal events or characters. This increases the possibility of spreading misinformation through visual media,” Ms. Nguyen Thi Hai Van shared.
Mr. Le Quoc Minh, Chairman of Vietnam Journalists Association and Ms. Nguyen Thi Hai Van, Director of Journalism Training Center.
At the workshop, Mr. Le Quoc Minh, member of the Party Central Committee, Editor-in-Chief of Nhan Dan Newspaper, Deputy Head of the Central Propaganda Department, Chairman of the Vietnam Journalists Association, shared the opportunities and challenges of journalism in the AI era. The Chairman of the Vietnam Journalists Association said that AI technologies bring both opportunities and threats to the journalism industry. Over the past few decades, press agencies around the world have experienced many difficulties due to declining advertising and print subscription revenues. AI technologies, if applied and deployed early to maximize their power, can have a positive impact in helping press agencies develop sustainably. “In terms of opportunities, AI helps save time, AI can be used as an assistant in the newsroom to do “odd jobs” (transcribing audio tapes, making subtitles, etc.), helping the newsroom do more work even with limited resources, processing ‘mountains’ of data… At the same time, AI helps newsrooms conquer new markets, text content as well as video and audio can be translated into other languages easily… In particular, AI helps press agencies in programming, finding patterns in data, suggesting content ideas, supporting editing work, suggesting article ideas, creating lists of related articles to supplement an article, providing different versions of content for each audience, using AI in TV program hosting…”, Chairman of the Vietnam Journalists Association Le Quoc Minh shared.
Delegates attending the conference.
Besides opportunities, AI also creates many challenges for the press, for example: The impact of "zero-click search" can cause a loss of about 2 billion USD in advertising revenue each year in the entire press industry, AI search can cause damage to 1/3 of the total business of the press agency (according to expert Greg Piechota of INMA)... Gartner's research predicts that traditional search volume will decrease by 25% by 2026. "Moreover, the use of AI can lead to over-reliance on technology, reducing the role of humans in checking and verifying information. At the same time, there is content that AI provides that is difficult to verify for accuracy and can have a large-scale negative impact on society. In the future, if AI is no longer an intermediary but directly brings information directly to readers, the problem for press agencies and journalists is how to continuously adapt, need to have an adaptive mindset and understand what readers need and how AI affects trust...", emphasized the President of the Vietnam Journalists Association Le Quoc Minh. Also at the conference, delegates presented papers on the impact of AI on journalism: Paper "Impact of AI on journalism - More encouraging than worrying" by journalist Le Xuan Trung - Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Tuoi Tre newspaper; paper "Artificial intelligence in the competition between technology companies and press agencies - Need for fair play" by journalist Nguyen Duc Hien, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Ho Chi Minh City Law Newspaper...; analysis of successful case studies of AI in journalism such as: VietnamPlus Newspaper (Vietnam News Agency), Tuoi Tre Newspaper and discussion of a number of proposals to improve journalism training and development in the current AI era.
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