A.I will not kill journalism: How to stay ahead of the revolution

Journalism has been thoroughly disrupted by the digital and technological evolution and while our industry is still reeling from Web 2.0 effects, it now needs to contend with the fallout, challenges and opportunities presented by AI.

If we thought these social platforms like Facebook, X, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok were disruptive, then Generative AI is about to shock the world and journalism will still get the short end of the stick if we wait to see what it has to offer.

You see, Web 2.0 gave people a chance to interact with web pages with Likes, RTs, comments and shareability instead of simply viewing them.

It also brought about user-generated content that gave us influencers and YouTube creators. So, now the media was not the only one with a monopoly to create the kind of content they wanted, the whole process was democratised.

This gave the audience choice, and saw content largely under the control of a small cabal of companies referred to as "Big Tech”.

Big Tech then became the new arena for content creation and distribution and because all of us were on these platforms, advertisers flocked there, used data to analyse their audiences and they fled legacy media. It happened too fast and greatly affected many aspects of media.

Print media was flogged, it still exists but very many former popular and profitable editions are now dead and buried and the surviving ones had to reduce pagination, staff, and content to try and stay alive. There are 25-year-olds who have never interacted with a newspaper as a news platform.

TV and radio were not as affected but they now had to go online and offer their content there because TV viewing public decided to start streaming and no longer rushed home to watch the 7 PM news like they did before.

Then came Web 3.0 or simply Web3 and the game changed while the players were still playing and trying to figure out why the Web2 rules only favour a few corporations.

Before Web2, all jobs were “normal”, you grew up to be a teacher, lawyer, doctor, engineer, or journalist but now, we have social media influencers, YouTube stars, data analysts, content creators and many more new careers that you can’t explain to your grandmother what it is you do.

Yes, we will still have teachers, lawyers, doctors, engineers, and journalists but we will have a lot more new careers than ever before.

Those of us with young children cannot even imagine what they will become career-wise once they are older. The options are endless. A gift and a curse.

The reason why journalism should be on the alert is that Generative AI, a type of artificial intelligence technology that can produce various types of content, including text, imagery, audio and synthetic data, will further democratise the creative space.

ChatGPT gave us a glimpse that now you can write content by just "prompting" it. It showed us how you can just ask a question and you get a 1,000-word copy in under 10 seconds.

Whether the article is factual or a mongrel of content swiped from different articles painstakingly penned by humans who took their time and resources is another article altogether.

Some newsrooms, not about to let this train leave without them behind like what happened with Web2, jumped on the AI cabin and started to study it and even came up with guidelines to direct their employees on how to approach and use generative AI in their content creation journey.

That Generative AI is more than disruptive is obvious, but what I see happening is many journalists and media houses standing by and screaming that it is here to kill their jobs and not trying to understand it to learn if there are any opportunities.

Yes, there will be casualties in all of this but one thing is for sure, journalism is not going to die. It will mutate not die off.

The Salem Witch Trials

At any point in the history of mankind, a new thing has always been met by hysteria complete with pitchforks and burnings akin to the Salem witch trials of 1692.

There were many medical breakthroughs that we are used to today, that back then, were deemed as witchcraft and doctors had to flee to save their lives.

In the late 20s when radio was getting popular and more people were relying on it, many thought that print as a news medium was about to die. Yes, they have been killing print for years and it still exists even though it is greatly hobbled now.

As far back as the 1800s, technological advancements have always been met with great fear.

The Luddites, a group of English textile workers were hysterical when the weaving machines were introduced. They feared that these machines were coming to kill their livelihoods.

Years later, this innovation brought about more work, more factories and more money. The Luddites who went ahead and learnt how to use machines survived, those who stuck to their old ways thinned out.

All these historical examples show that fear is part of any dawning innovation moment and with good reason; humans get used to one way or one thing for a while and so trying to bring something that is faster and better breeds contempt and fear.

This is what is happening in journalism today and of course, many other industries and this fear stops many from seeing the opportunities that will come up from the new, shiny thing.

Can Journalism survive AI?

So, can journalists still survive Generative AI? I say yes! People still want to be informed, they want breaking news, they want stories that are near and dear to them and to be honest, AI cannot do that, yet.

What AI will do is take journalism back to its roots, when it told authentic human stories, covered local politics, helped make sense of that new Bill in Parliament, and gave context to the controversial Housing Bill or the controversial Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF) that is about to make us poorer by invading our payslips and we are not sure if they will do what they are saying they will do.

Sure, we still want that list of 10 things to do in Nairobi, Mumbai or North Mugirango but we still yearn for authentic human stories. Who was Rita Waeni, Scarlet Wahu and how have their murders wrecked families, what is that new Wambugu Apple and how can it help farmers improve their yields?

I am confident that as much as AI seems like it can do anything and everything, it cannot replace the human touch, emotion, judgment and even ethics critical for good journalism.

Stories should not be just about figures and complicated math; sometimes you want to read a story that will make you smile, laugh, cry and even be confused.

Sometimes even a typo here and there adds to the authenticity of it all. I say this knowing I might be skinned alive but you get the context.

AI tools for journalists...

For journalists, there are tools at our disposal that we can use in our everyday lives.

Here are a few examples…

Dall-E: You can use this platform to create images for your stories. There is no copyright issue as you own the image(s).

You have already seen Safaricom, Pioneer School and many other corporations use AI images on their billboards. It is probably cheaper and faster than the “old” route.

GPT Zero: If you are an editor, this will and should be your best friend. GPTZero is an AI-detection tool that can pick out content that was written by AI. Even when someone has tried to mix the two, GPTZero will highlight even a one-line quote at the touch of a button.

Grammarly: These are AI writing assistance tools to help you write better and concisely. Anyone rolling their eyes on this and have been depending on Microsoft Word’s redlining feature to improve their content should just accept that a new dawn is here.

Also, GPTZero will not flag using Grammarly as having been done by AI.

QuillBot, DeepL: These are AI paraphrasing tools that will guide you to write better, faster, and smarter.

So if you have your copy done, you can use QuillBot to see how else your article can be better and make you sound smarter.

Summarize Tech: Do you have a YouTube video you want to figure out what it is all about? Share the link on Summarize and you have your answer. It will not give you everything you want and may make some mistakes so be human and do some extra work.

Tome: Want to make your presentation pop and creative? Use this AI app that automates PowerPoint presentation creation.

You will still need to feed it your content so don’t think it will do everything for you.

Google Pinpoint: Do you have a PDF file that is long and impossible to follow? Just load it on Google Pinpoint and it will help you search for what you are looking for, summarize and highlight your main points. It makes research a breeze.

Wordtune Spices: This writing assistant can help make you sound formal and casual, and can help shorten your text or even expand it. It will give you different versions of your text to make it richer and guide you on your writing journey.

Is it AI: Is someone alleging that they have photos of the president looking rather muscular or posing in shorts? You can just load the image on this AI Image Detector tool and it will tell you whether the image has been generated by an artificial intelligence model or is authentic.