The rise of AI could ‘deathly weaken’ journalism, News Corp CEO Robert Thomson has warned – echoing ominous predictions that individuals could be turned away from knowledge-intensive industries
Thomson raised the alarm over artificial intelligence programs that could remove proprietary content or siphon promoting money from “blacklisted” publications when he spoke to industry leaders on the International News Media Association’s World Congress in Latest York on Thursday.
“Our shared IP [intellectual property] is under threat” from artificial intelligence,” said Thomson, CEO at The Post’s parent company, which also owns The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and the London Times.
“First, our content is collected, processed and otherwise processed to coach AI engines.
“Second, individual stories will appear in specific searches.”
“And thirdly, our content will probably be synthesized and presented as separate, when actually it’s extracting the editorial essence,” added Thomson.
“These are super pieces, containing all the hassle and insight of great journalism, but designed in order that the reader never visits a journalism website, thereby fatally undermining that journalism.”
Thomson cited “extreme revenue pressures” and “uncertain macroeconomic times ahead” for the news industry, which is able to require media corporations to “optimize operations”.
He hit the “Global Disinformation Index and its ilk” for discouraging advertisers from doing business with publishers who publish articles deemed “disinformation.”
GDI, a UK-based entity with US branches, has reportedly compiled secret “exclusion lists” of conservative media outlets in an try to deny them promoting dollars.
“These boastful armchair amateurs have an undue influence on the promoting spend of agencies and firms,” said Thomson.
“No masthead is resistant to sudden, capricious changes in algorithmic rating that may impact ad revenue,” he said.
“Individually, we’re all roughly hooked on promoting, and yet some promoting agencies are unnecessarily nervous in regards to the news.”
Thomson said he recently approached the CEO of a significant advertiser and wondered why the corporate had banned ads from The Post.
“The chief executive said he was completely unaware of such a ban,” Thomson said.
“So he checked, and to his real and annoyed surprise, the agency’s hyper-politicized minion was banned from fasting.”
GDI blacklists are reportedly sent to big, big ad corporations that lobby through “nonpartisan” organizations ostensibly fighting online disinformation.
Firms are then forced to stop doing business with right-wing, conservative news outlets – including Newsmax, Federalist, Each day Wire and The Latest York Post, in accordance with the Washington Examiner.
GDI website says the group seeks to “remove the financial incentive” to spread “disinformation” by disseminating a “dynamic exclusion list” that ranks media outlets in accordance with their “risk” factor.
Complicating matters is that “journalism is now grappling with a sudden glut of artificial information,” Thomson said.
The Associated Press, Bloomberg News, The Latest York Times, BBC and Thomson Reuters are among the many news agencies which have begun to include AI into their news operations.
Nonetheless, he said that AI-powered journalism lacks “EI” – the emotional intelligence that comes from human editorial judgment.
“For us, AI without EI is empty calories,” said Thomson.
“Emotional intelligence needs to be our comparative advantage, provided that we operate within the industry of editorial empathy.”
Thomson added, “We want to know methods to impart knowledge … and together we must be more assertive in haggling over the values and virtues of journalism.”