Sky News has created and tested its first AI news reporter, to experiment whether GenAI could replace the role of a journalist.
Well, reporters, there’s good and bad news.
Firstly ChatGPT managed to pitch 8 story ideas within 20 minutes, however, the AI reporter did make critical mistakes, fabricated expert evidence (tech people prefer referring to this as “hallucinations”) and needed human intervention to “uphold ethical and editorial standards.”
The AI reporter was created in partnership with Norwegian YouTuber and coder, Kris Fagerlie, using ChatGPT and other publicly available AI software.
With ChatGPT responding to text prompts, Fagerlie and Sky News created 2 “agents” for the experiment, mimicking a reporter and an editor so it could prompt itself throughout the process.
After the AI reporter pitched 8 different story ideas, it prompted itself to research 1, identify expert spokespeople and source AI-generated images.
The result was a 300-word AI-generated news article and accompanying 90-second television report.
“Generative AI undoubtedly has the world in a spin, as experts grapple with its increasing sophistication, and the resulting threats it presents,” said Tom Clarke, Science and Technology Editor for Sky News.
“Our experts got right to the heart of the debate, putting AI to the test to see if it really could replace our jobs. Language and video generating AIs proved they are so powerful now they could comfortably replace some of the tasks we do. But, I think it’s fair to conclude that the imagination and rigour of real-world journalists means my job is safe for now.”
You can watch the result below…
