AI Reporters are Here and They're Awful
We're entered a new era of journalism in which our news and information will increasingly come from a machine. It's not off to a good start.
CNN recently reported that Microsoft appears to have begun using artificial intelligence to write news stories for its homepage, MSN.com, "one of the world’s most trafficked websites and a place where millions of Americans get their news every day."
But their new AI reporter had difficulty discerning truth from falsehood and some of its language was, well, inhumane. It published misinformation about Covid and Joe Biden. An obituary for a former NBA player described him as "useless" in the headline. And The Guardian is particularly upset that MSN republished one of its stories about the tragic death of a 21-y-o in Australia and added an AI-generated poll asking readers what they thought the cause of death was — murder, accident, or suicide. Yikes!
The AI reporters also seem particularly adept at writing headlines that contribute to political extremism, such as, “Should America Get Rid of Biden for Good?” and “A Darker Side of the Catastrophe Unfolding Under Joe Biden.”
The uptick in misinformation and toxic polarization ahead of next year's presidential election will be bad enough already. We don't need AI reporters contributing to the problem.
What can we do?
Make sure you're getting your news from reliable sources. Subscribe to an established reputable newspaper with human editors and human reporters. They won't always get everything exactly right, but they'll prioritize truth and they'll issue corrections when they get something wrong.
For more information on how to become a better news consumer, AVC has a new resource for individuals, small groups, and churches — Mending Division Academy. We should strive to be informed citizens, but in today's media environment, how do we do that without contributing to divisiveness and broken relationships in our families and communities? One of the six MDA courses deals precisely with this issue. "When Journalism Divides Us: Confronting Our Media Consumption Habits," is taught by Bonnie Kristian, editorial director of ideas and books at Christianity Today and the author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (2022).
Watch this short clip from Kristian's course where she talks about why the media prioritizes speed and why that's a problem. While Kristian doesn’t mention AI, speed is one of the reasons we'll see more AI reporters in the future. (They can also work 24/7, even holidays, and don't need benefits such as healthcare.)
Use the code "NOV40" to get 40% off any of the courses for the month of November.
Kristian also has a substack newsletter and this week's topic is also AI.
For more problems with AI content, check these out:
On the biases of AI image generators (spoiler: one of the biases is racism): "This is how AI image generators see the world."
On "nudifier" apps that allow you to use a photo of a clothed person to create an AI generated nude image of them: "AI fake nudes are booming. It’s ruining real teens’ lives: Artificial intelligence makes it frighteningly easy to transform ordinary pictures into realistic nudes, triggering a surge of fake images of women and teens."
You're Invited
Once a month, you are invited to join a virtual prayer gathering from November 2023 to November 2024. The next gathering will be held on Wednesday, December 6 from 1:00 - 2:00 pm ET. Sign up at this link if you would like to receive updates and the zoom link for each gathering.
We intentionally started one year from the 2024 election to pray for the divisions that are wreaking havoc on our relationships, churches, communities, and politics. By rotation, the prayer sessions will be led by different organizations that are a part of the same "ecosystem," working to cultivate healthy Christian participation in the public square.
What Else We're Reading
The Bulwark: "Restoring Civility in Our Politics"
Civility is the stuff that makes a free society—especially a democracy—work. It promotes reasoned, tempered dialogue and interactions between citizens, a virtue of civility that is especially important for our lawmakers. Civility builds an active willingness to listen to others, to consider their point of view alongside our own, and to evaluate varying conceptions of “the good.” The civil citizen accepts that others have genuinely held moral positions, and that reasonable minds can disagree. Civility promotes basic decency while also taking certain modes of action off the table.
USA Today: "When Libs of TikTok tweets, threats increasingly follow"
These cases, and many more, share a common link: The victim of each threat had also been targeted, in the days before, by the enormously popular conservative social media channel Libs of TikTok.
In almost every case, the perpetrator of the threat is unknown, and Chaya Raichik, the far-right influencer who runs Libs of TikTok, says she opposes violence, and that because there have been almost no arrests, there’s no proof the threats come from her followers.
But whoever is making the threats, the posts show a clear pattern. USA TODAY has confirmed dozens of bomb threats, death threats and other harassment after Libs of TikTok’s posts since February 2022, based on exclusive new research from the progressive analysis group Media Matters for America.
WaPo: "Trump and allies plot revenge, Justice Department control in a second term"
In private, Trump has told advisers and friends in recent months that he wants the Justice Department to investigate onetime officials and allies who have become critical of his time in office, including his former chief of staff, John F. Kelly, and former attorney general William P. Barr, as well as his ex-attorney Ty Cobb and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, according to people who have talked to him, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Trump has also talked of prosecuting officials at the FBI and Justice Department, a person familiar with the matter said.
Study: "Listening to understand: The role of high-quality listening on speakers' attitude depolarization during disagreements"
Abstract
Disagreements can polarize attitudes when they evoke defensiveness from the conversation partners. When a speaker talks, listeners often think about ways to counterargue. This process often fails to depolarize attitudes and might even backfire (i.e., the Boomerang effect). However, what happens in disagreements if one conversation partner genuinely listens to the other's perspective? We hypothesized that when conversation partners convey high-quality listening-characterized by attention, understanding, and positive intentions-speakers will feel more socially comfortable and connected to them (i.e., positivity resonance) and reflect on their attitudes in a less defensive manner (i.e., have self-insight). We further hypothesized that this process reduces perceived polarization (perceived attitude change, perceived attitude similarity with the listener) and actual polarization (reduced attitude extremity). Four experiments manipulated poor, moderate, and high-quality listening using a video vignette (Study 1) and live interactions (Studies 2-4). The results consistently supported the research hypotheses and a serial mediation model in which listening influences depolarization through positivity resonance and nondefensive self-reflection. Most of the effects of the listening manipulation on perceived and actual depolarization generalized across indicators of attitude strength, specifically attitude certainty and attitude morality. These findings suggest that high-quality listening can be a valuable tool for bridging attitudinal and ideological divides. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
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