Gannett, the media company that owns hundreds of newspapers in the United States, is launching a new program that will add AI-generated bullet points to the beginning of journalists' articles, an internal memo revealed. The Verge.
An AI feature labeled “Key Points” on a story uses automated technology to create a summary that appears below the heading. The end of the article includes a disclaimer that says, “Key points at the top of this article were created with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) and reviewed by journalists before publication.” No other parts of the article were generated using AI. ” The memo is dated May 14 and states that participation is voluntary at this time.
It seems that the summary has already been published on several sites USA Today Online story (owned by Gannett) USA Today document). According to the memo, the AI-generated summaries “are intended to enhance the reporting process and improve the viewer experience.” The AI model that powers the tool was trained in-house over a period of nine months.
“The documents speak for themselves,” Gannett spokeswoman Lark-Marie Anton said in an email.
Gannett has previously experimented with AI content in cases where the company made embarrassing mistakes and then quickly backed down. Last August, Gannett pulled the plug on an AI-generated sports compilation after readers mocked the clumsiness of the writing. In October, Gannett staff examinationThe company's consumer products site claimed that the content shown online was created using AI. As we reported last year, the third-party marketing company that produced the piece also sports illustrated AI controversy. The AI-generated author was credited as the author. At the time, Gannett insisted that the product reviews were not generated by AI tools.
The addition of AI-generated summaries comes after members of local unions have raised concerns about proposed contract language regarding the use of AI.according to DIGIDAYworkers who are members of a labor union Democratic Party and HistoryResidents of Rochester, New York, were alarmed when they saw the clause added. The contract being negotiated states that “artificial intelligence (AI) may be used to generate news content.”
AI-generated summaries of news articles reflect what's happening on search platforms. At the Google I/O developer conference held this week, the tech giant revealed all the ways AI will be incorporated into search, including adding his AI answers to the top of results pages. TikTok is also experimenting with an AI-generated “summary” on its search results page. The chances of the AI's answers (trained with human-generated content) ranking higher than the actual His website and links are that users do not proceed to the source material after reading his AI overview. This can be harmful to publishers and their traffic.
Anton didn't reply. The VergeThe question is whether AI summaries can discourage readers from reading the actual story.