Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Direktor des Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism und Professor of Political Communication an der University of Oxford:
First, while much of the public are probably going to be quite sceptical of the use of generative AI for many kinds of news, they are, if past research on people’s perception of editors versus algorithms as ways of getting news, also quite sceptical of many current offers. The fact that people see a lot of crap on the internet does not automatically make them value your content more.
Second, much of the public are routinely using, at vast scale, digital offers that they don’t necessarily particularly trust, and countless advertisers continue to invest in the same offers despite whatever misgivings they have. The fact that people are concerned about the downsides of something does not necessarily mean they won’t use it if the upsides are clear and tangible.
Viele Menschen sind skeptisch, was K.I. betrifft – aber sie werden es wie schon heute oft nicht mitbekommen, dass sie damit interagieren, schreibt Nielsen. Seit Jahren werden uns Inhalte auf YouTube und Google und Produkte auf Amazon von K.I. vorgeschlagen – und den wenigsten Menschen ist das bewusst.
Excepting cases where the companies involved in the latter want to conspicuously flaunt the term, generative AI may well become normalised to the point of being naturalised or even well-nigh invisible, no more noticeable or noteworthy to most of us than current use of e.g. machine-learned ranking in search engines or dynamic neural networks components in social recommendations are.
Wie werden bestehende Medien darauf reagieren? Defensiv, wie immer:
Meanwhile, because generative AI presents a threat to their inherited business models, a critical mass of publishers are likely to take the same defensive approach they have for decades generally taken to digital technologies that challenge their existing business. Given the pressures and incentives they face, it is not surprising that many are primarily trying to harness AI for incremental purposes, essentially trying to use it to cut costs and realise more value from current material through greater use of AI for personalisation and re-versioning of content. Let’s call this “AI incrementalism.”
The likely implications are two-fold.
First, many publishers will produce more content more cheaply in a world where the bulk of news as we know it is already, from the point of view of much of the public,demonstrably largely commoditised, generic, and highly substitutable, and therefore of little value in terms of willingness to pay attention, let alone pay. If publishers primarily use AI to produce more of the same more cheaply, they will further reduce the already limited commercial value of all but the most effectively differentiated news content.
Second, others’ use of AI will mean that publishers continue to lose ground when it comes to most of what industry consultants call “user needs” and academics call “uses and gratifications”. With the partial exception of keeping people up to date on current affairs, publishers play a less and less prominent role in virtually every other use case, ranging from entertainment to education to engagement, all of which are served by a multitude of other competitors, some of whom will aggressively experiment with using generative AI.
Was sich Medien fragen sollten:
First, to identify what, from members of the public’s point of view, sets them apart from an already abundant supply of content and information now being supercharged by growing use of generative AI by many other actors.
Second, to consider whether generative AI is yet another chance for publishers to lean into an increasingly personalised, participatory, and personable information ecosystem that news media continue to mostly serve in one-size-fits-all, one-way, and often relatively impersonal ways.
Der Bedeutungsverlust geht weiter:
It’s important to be clear – the decline of most publishers’ commercial revenues and societal relevance will only be further accelerated by generative AI. Despite the very real opportunities, journalists have plenty of reasons to be worried.
The rise of the internet means publishers have largely lost control of distribution. The rise of platforms means they have largely lost control of discovery. The rise of so-called Web 2.0 began to challenge their control of content, and generative AI will supercharge that challenge.
Many publishers, and thousands of hard-working journalists, are likely to be caught up in yet another wrenching revolution of the unfinished digital revolution.
Wo die große Chance von K.I. liegt:
Most of us want to understand the world beyond personal experience. Original reporting is often a necessary part of enabling us to do so, as is the willingness to take responsibility for exercising editorial judgement, assessing competing claims and conflicting pieces of evidence in often fast-evolving, contentious and opaque situations. AI, like other digital technologies, can help journalists do this better, and can help publishers give people a better experience when they engage with journalism.
I think that’s where the long-term opportunity lies – at the intersection between the timeless journalistic aspiration to seek truth and report it, the constantly evolving set of tools and technologies that can help journalists do that and can help people engage with journalism, and the enduring public desire to make sense of the world and what happens in it.