Artificial Intelligence (AI) is developing at such a pace that it behoves us to contemplate the day when robots decide what is news. The nightmare future would involve AI bots breaking stories based on information scraped from social media, or producing analysis based on corporate PR releases, partisan disinformation sites and what is left of state-supported media. All with negligible human oversight.

But before AI eats the news, hope remains that media organisations can still preserve the role of independent journalism within the emerging online ecosystem. On Thursday, in a key moment, The New York Times announced a deal to allow its content to be used by AI products. In kitchens worldwide, Alexa, Amazon’s talking virtual assistant, will soon be able to provide insights as well informed as those of the most obsessive reader of The New York Times.

Until now, The New York Times has taken a hostile stance towards AI firms, including suing OpenAI and Microsoft for allegedly “copying and using millions” of its articles to train AI models without payment. The difference here is that Amazon is coughing up.

This........

© iNews