Headlines You Should Know

 

AI Spreads its Wings in the Media and Advertising

Many news organizations are starting to turn to generative AI for content generation, especially those with smaller headcounts due to layoffs. We’ve seen what can go wrong when publishers like Sports Illustrated, Gannett, and CNET rely on fully automated news generation. The best way forward is to augment the human workforce and use AI as a helpful tool instead of replacing reporters.

But AI isn’t just infiltrating journalism — advertising and marketing agencies see an outright demand for AI content. One report says 60% of consumers prefer AI content over traditional content, and 91% of creators and influencers use AI weekly.

For communications professionals, the rise of AI represents both a challenge and an opportunity. On one hand, it necessitates a reassessment of skills and a focus on areas where human creativity and oversight are irreplaceable. On the other, it offers tools to enhance content relevance and audience engagement, creating much needed efficiency. Embracing AI responsibly can create a competitive edge, but whatever AI produces still needs manual oversight and approval to ensure it meets your ethical and quality standards.

Elsewhere …

• LISTEN: Cultivating Compassionate AI
• Distillery in Scotland Using AI to Create Limited Edition Whisky
• Canadian Firm Launches AI-Powered ETF Targeting AI Investments
• Tennessee Enacts ELVIS Act to Protect Artist Voices from AI Misuse
• OpenAI Shows Off How 7 Artists Used Sora

Tips and Tricks

 How to get ChatGPT to read links again

What’s happening: One of the standout features of ChatGPT is should be its ability to browse the internet. However, more publications are blocking AI bots from their sites to keep ChatGPT from training on their content or visiting the site altogether. 

Why it’s important: It’s hard to use AI to conduct research if it can’t visit the page, and whether that’s due to sites blocking AI or ChatGPT just forgetting it knows how to visit external sites — even when you tell it, “Hey, why don’t you use your web browsing capabilities?” — we need a better way. 

Try this: The maker of the (now defunct) Link Reader plugin has a GPT called Browser Pro, which is much better at reading specific web pages than GPT-4. Although it’s subjective, you may prefer it for browsing, too.

Quote of the Week

“If the problem of inaccuracy persists, there may be an increased demand for fact-checkers, and their work may be more challenging and important than ever as the internet gets flooded with more and more AI-generated false information. Companies and governments should require media outlets to mark their content in a way that readers can confirm what truly comes from them.”

— Ravit Dotan, an AI ethics adviser and researcher, to the Financial Times on the proliferation of AI in the media