HEADLINES + OUR TAKE
If we are using AI in journalism we need better guidelines on reporting uncertainty | ONLINE JOURNALISM BLOG
A poetry-writing AI has just been unveiled. It’s … pretty good. | VOX
Drowning in Research Reading? AI Could Help | INSIDE HIGHER ED
A new way to build tiny neural networks could create powerful AI on your phone | MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW
LONGER READS
Artificial sincerity, too? | jAI
The Bright Future of News Automation | Linden
An Industry-Led Debate: How UK Media Cover Artificial Intelligence | 2018
Tom Kent: Fake news is about to get so much more dangerous | Sept 2018
ARCHIVES - BY RECENCY
Samsung uses AI to transform photos into talking head videos | ZDNET
Still images come to life using a AI model developed by Samsung at its Moscow research lab, ZDNET reports. Speech-like sequences can be generated from reference images as few as a single frame, such as a rare photo. Researchers claim the results can be…
If we are using AI in journalism we need better guidelines on reporting uncertainty | ONLINE JOURNALISM BLOG
The ONLINE JOURNALISM BLOG points out differences between reporting data as facts and data as probabilities, often found when results are from machine learning systems instead of quantitative findings. The piece offers a checklist for accountability when using algorithmically-generated results: How big was the…
Digital assistants like Siri and Alexa entrench gender biases, says UN | THE GUARDIAN
THE GUARDIAN reports that a UNESCO study says smart speakers like Siri and Alexa should not use female voices by default. The study suggests the computer-simulated voices should be treated as ‘non-human,’ and that programming for digital assistants should discourage gender-based innuendo. The Guardian…
Teaching machines to write better adverts than humans | BBC
A machine that generates 20 to 25 ads per second — no extra time or charge for the puns — is one of the advances in AI systems that ‘create’ narratives. BBC News reports some of the call-to-action phrases can be more effective than…
Krishna Bharat on the impact of AI on journalism and democracy | GLOBAL EDITORS NETWORK
The GLOBAL EDITORS NETWORK has a wide-ranging interview with Google News founder, Krisha Bharat, who says AI can provide journalists with ‘superpowers’ provided they have access to the required resources — data scientists, high-end computing time, and AI models. Availability could be a concern,…
Five questions you can use to cut through AI hype | MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW
MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW offers a checklist by Karen Ho to help assess hype-heavy claims about products ‘powered’ by artificial intelligence. Her five hurdles for any contender: What is the problem it’s trying to solve? How is the company approaching that problem with machine learning?…
A poetry-writing AI has just been unveiled. It’s … pretty good. | VOX
VOX tests the latest version of GPT-2, the controversial text-generating algorithm, and now you can too. A Toronto machine language engineer has put together a simple website so anyone can give try the GPT-2 ‘writing’ algorithm using its most recently updated model. GPT-2 caused…
journalismAI.com – ‘a head start on the next disruption’
This post marks the launch of journalismAI.com. We track advances in artificial intelligence and what they mean for journalism. Part of this site began on my living room floor in the 1960s. I’d sit cross-legged and transfixed by a black and white image on a…
Drowning in Research Reading? AI Could Help | INSIDE HIGHER ED
‘(It) could potentially be used by journalists to help communicate complex research to the public, though the authors say they aren’t going to be putting journalists out of a job any time soon.‘ A new algorithm for summarizing text is reported by INSIDE HIGHER…
A new way to build tiny neural networks could create powerful AI on your phone | MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW
MIT Technology Review reports on a research discovery that suggests some AI capabilities can be achieved with simpler processing and in turn need less computing power. The findings come from looking into the workings of neural networks, structures of nodes, called neurons for their…
How to Blend Journalistic Expertise with Artificial Intelligence for Research and Verifying News Stories | Missaoui et al
How do journalists perceive artificial intelligence? Six UK researchers wanted to find out as part of their larger study to develop an AI tool that is ‘sympathetic to the way journalists work.’ Amongst their study sample, they found: Perception – Awareness of a range…
BRIEFS: May 2019
Q&A: Radar – can robots write the news? WHAT’S NEW IN PUBLISHING | May 21, 2019 | ‘We have a team of five reporters, publishing 8,000-10,000 local stories each month.’ Saving AI from catastrophic forgetting AXIOS | May 18, 2019 | by Kaven Waddell | ‘…it’s…
The Future of A.I., According to Three New Books | NEW YORK TIMES
Three new titles consider how artificial intelligence will influence human thinking. THE NEW YORK TIMES presents a trio of reviews by Rachel Rieder, co-editor of Guernica: A Magazine of Global Art + Politics. The books: THE CREATIVITY CODE Art and Innovation in the Age…
OpenAI wants to make ultrapowerful AI, but not in a bad way | WIRED
WIRED reports on the business evolution of a Silicon Valley company fully committed to AI that betters or exceeds human performance. We’ve included elsewhere stories about OpenAI projects, in New AI fake text generator may be too dangerous to release, say creators | THE…
UAE gets first Arabic speaking AI news anchor | KLALEEJ TIMES
Abu Dhabi Media will debut an AI anchor, marking a first in the Arab world and becoming the first technology of its kind exported by its Chinese makers. KLALEEJ TIMES reports Abu Dhabi Media has signed an agreement with Sogou, the Chinese internet and…
AI model adds music to its repertoire | jAI
An AI technology that generates believable text now produces tunes, too. Both come from OpenAI, a California company dedicated to developing artificial general intelligence. Their newest model is called MuseNet. OpenAI says MuseNet can generate an original composition up to four minutes long, orchestrated…
What is machine learning and why should I care? | CJR
The COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW explains machine learning with examples of how it’s being used in newsrooms. Author Nick Diakopoulos describes four ‘flavours’ of machine learning. Each varies by the amount of input by humans. For example, in supervised learning, the data to ‘train’ the…
Brain signals translated into speech using artificial intelligence | NATURE
You could call it ‘speaking your mind’ — your words detected from your brainwaves, then decoded with an AI system and artificially produced, a machine saying what you wanted to say milliseconds earlier. Years from now, the system could provide an alternative to people…
Fei-Fei Li & Yuval Noah Harari in Conversation – The Coming AI Upheaval | Stanford 2019
Runs: 90m Discussion starts around 9:38, following introductions A wide ranging conversation between two leading thinkers in technology evolution: ethics in society, hacking humans, free will, and more. Moderated by Nicholas Thompson, WIRED’s Editor-in-Chief The session was jointly sponsored by Stanford University’s Humanities Center,…
Robot news presenter causes a stir on Russian TV | BBC NEWS
BBC News reports Russian television has unveiled “Alex’, a news reading robot that appears on its state-owned news channel, Rossiya 24. The report quotes Rossiya 24 saying Alex was made in Russia with “software and almost all of its components produced inside the country.”…
Charlie Beckett: Emotion as an organising principle for networked journalism | April 2019
‘Emotions are going to become more important for news in the networked era, that is inevitable, the choice for journalists (and the public) is how they respond.’ IN A SPEECH AT NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY, Charlie Beckett says emotion, used constructively, can contribute to a further…
GLOSSARY: 12 common terms in journalism + AI
These are informal definitions of common terms. Some keep evolving by use. Please suggest additions. ALGORITHM – Algorithms are sets of instructions — some say like recipes — for computers to reach an outcome. See How do algorithms work? AUGMENTED NEWSROOM – Using automated…
First AI-generated textbook published by Springer | jAI
A 247-page publication about lithium-ion batteries is the first textbook authored by a computer, setting a new milestone in machine-generated publishing. Springer, a leading publisher, collaborated with researchers at the Applied Computational Linguistics (ACoLi) lab at Goethe University in Frankfurt to produce the book….
The next disruption
A QUESTION COMES TO MIND, we say it out loud, an ‘assistant’ answers back. We glance at our mobile, it unlocks. We want another language, select from a menu, the translation appears. (Go ahead, try it… the menu is on your right… see how…
AI, Facts and the Future of Journalism | FOURTH ESTATE
Runs 34:07 A podcast discussion about using AI tools in newsrooms. Hosted by Peter Fray, co-director of the Centre for Media Transition at the University of Technology, Sydney. Guests Nick Evershed – The Guardian Australia Ben McNeil – Metafact NOTE: There may be a…
Amazon Alexa now offers long-form news coverage in addition to Flash Briefings | TECHCRUNCH
46% of smart speaker owners ask for news and segment leader Amazon has begun offering US users enriched news briefings, according to a report in TECH CRUNCH. Plans for other countries are not mentioned. Amazon says the new service combines news from Bloomberg, CNBC,…
AI isn’t taking journalists’ jobs. It is making them smarter and more efficient | REYNOLDS JOURNALISM INSTITUTE
Runs 3:22 Clips from five journalists who presented first-person view of AI systems in journalism to students as part of the Reynolds Journalism Institute’s Innovation Series. The journalists are from: The Wall Street Journal Washington Post WIRED Dogtown Media Graphika March 2019 | Missouri
RADAR signs its first paying subscribers for stories jointly written by journalists and AI | PRESS ASSOCIATION
‘The UK news service pioneering the use of artificial intelligence to help journalists scale up the production of local news stories has progressed from its beta trials to a subscription-funded service.’ RADAR is for Reporters and Data and Robots, a news service that creates…
Newsroom technology and the future of journalism | IJF 2019
Runs 47:50 A talk by Chris Collins, senior executive editor, breaking news, for Bloomberg, about uses and influences of AI technology and a look forward at a future newsroom. His talk was given at the International Journalism Festival. Perugia | April 2019
Google News Initiative: AI in the newsroom | IJF 2019
Runs 54:59 A panel discussion at the International Journalism Festival 2019 about how AI is influencing publishing and ways newsrooms are experimenting. Panelists David Dieudonné – Lead Google News Lab France Patricia Georgiou – Head of partnerships, Jigsaw Perugia, April 2019
Artificial sincerity, too? | jAI
The idea of an AI personality on television was parodied in a 1980’s UK production known as Max Headroom. It featured a computer-generated figure known best for his sarcasm and digital stutter. It seems unlikely the new AI anchors of China will be doing…
Journalism’s Increasing use of Artificial Intelligence | WHARTON BUSINESS RADIO
Runs 20:47 Podcast discussion with two journalism professors who specialize in AI and journalism. Hosted by Dan Loney. Meredith Broussard, assistant professor at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute Seth Lewis, chair in Emerging Media at the University of Oregon’s School of…
Good News, Everyone! Context driven entity-aware captioning for news images | Biten et al
Ali Furken Biten and his co-authors report about a caption-writing algorithm that extracts meaning from full texts to generate enriched captions. Algorithms only know what they are instructed or what they can learn from data. When applied to writing caption for pictures, machine learning…
BRIEFS: April 2019
AI writers will never replace quality content creatorsTHE DRUM | April 30, 2109 | by Andy Evans | ‘AI-generated content will never truly engage readers or speak to them on a deeper level because robots are lacking the human emotions and characteristics that feed…
iFlytek | AI-DAY 2019
Runs 27:35 Presentation by iFlytek, named by MIT in 2017 as the most innovative company in China and number six worldwide. Presenters: Zhang Wuxu, Introduction Xie Fei, General Manager of Fintech and Smart Service Business Unit Wang Wei, VP of Consumer Business Group March…
