AI & Journalism

The impact of AI is massive and widespread, and the landscape is changing rapidly. We are already seeing impacts for news reporting, circulation and consumption. Taking advantage of the benefits while limiting the harms will require a careful balancing act in our deeply complex information environment. For newsrooms, the use of generative AI tools offers benefits for productivity and innovation. At the same time, it risks inaccuracies, ethical issues and undermining public trust. 

Policy deliberation: Legislation will need to offer clear and consistent definitions of AI categories, grapple with the repercussions of AI-generated content for copyright and civil liberties and offer accountability for violations. The Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA)’s failure to pass in Canada also suggests that deliberations will need to include avenues for meaningful public participation.

Public understanding: As newsrooms implement AI, they need to remember that while communicating about how they are using AI is important, transparency alone is not enough. The public largely lacks a nuanced understanding of journalistic practices and they need that context to make sense of AI. That means transparency initiatives must be broader than initially conceived and include information about human journalists’ work. 

Governance: Without policy guidance, technology companies’ own decisions will continue to dictate how AI is developed, implemented and used. Further downstream, publishers will also be responsible for establishing transparent, ethical guidelines for and education about AI use. Forward-thinking collaboration among policymakers, publishers, technology developers and other stakeholders is critical to strike the right balance and support public access to information.