Google Uses AI to Write News
The company has offered its AI-based tool that it is testing to News Corp for testing
Make no mistake! Google wants to be the lord of all that it purveys. Having lost the early generative AI battle to archrival Microsoft, the company is now testing a tool that can be used to write news stories. The company has pitched it to News Corp at a time when it’s facing a lawsuit from Gannet, the largest newspaper chain of the US over violating federal antitrust laws for monopolizing the tech used by publishers to buy and sell online ads.
The tool, codenamed Genesis, can acquire information and generate news copy, says a report published by The New York Times, one of the publications owned and operated by News Corp. Of course, the company is pitching Genesis as a personal assistant for journalists and not as a means to take over the entire publishing industry, which has been up in arms over Google’s policies on online ads across several countries.
Is this the next step after Google’s News Showcase?
In fact, the company offered more to local media outlets on its News app by providing more funding to local publications while rolling out new features to help discover local news. A report published by The Verge in June said the Google News mobile feed on Android and Apple has tweaked the Following tab to ensure local stories appear more frequently.
It also committed to bring the News Showcase to the US whereby Google will pay local publishers to offer readers access to some of their paywalled articles. The company claims this will encourage readers to learn more about the publication and potentially grow subscriptions. Google has launched News Showcase in 22 countries already including India.
Given this scenario, Google’s initiative at news writing may raise a few hackles, given the bad blood that generative AI has created around job losses in an already dull market. Google claims the tool will automate some tasks to free up time for others and considers Genesis as a form of responsible technology support for the media.
However, a report published by TechCrunch quotes The New York Times to suggest that some of the executives to whom Google pitched the tool saw it as “unsettling”, claiming that the tool seemed to have utter disregard for the manner in which accurate news stories were produced by the industry across the world.
Google says no, and attempts to soothe flaring tempers
Google also issued a statement claiming that their efforts were in partnership with news publishers, especially the smaller ones, wherein they were exploring ideas to potentially provide AI-enabled tools to help journalists with their work. The question now is whether these small publishers, possibly in the local media circles, feel short-changed by this 900-pound gorilla.
Having said so, Google is making it look like a support system. The spokesperson quoted by TechCrunch says the AI-tools would assist journalists with options for headlines or different writing styles. Which makes us wonder if there could be a further surfeit of SEO-powered headlines that function as clickbaits and dump creativity in the dustbin.
The spokesperson appeared to be taking a conciliatory tone by suggesting that the tools aren’t intended to, and cannot replace the essential role journalists have in reporting, creating, and fact-checking their articles. “Our goal is to give them the choice of using emerging tech in a way that enhances their work and productivity,” is how the spokesperson describes Genesis.
AI in news reporting is not new thoug
Of course, it is quite another matter that several media organizations had adopted AI to generate stories, especially around corporate earnings and similar reportage where the data is structured in a specific faction, where an AI-tool can connect the dots and create cogent sentences to provide the information.
While Google’s latest effort may spur a round of anxiety around how such stories can be fact-checked or thoroughly edited to guard against misinformation, it is the intent of big tech that needs to be questioned here. The need to become the lord of all that it purveys is only taking the world back towards a centralized model of operation. In India, the government controlled most industries for more than four decades before liberalization came to roost in 1991.
Looks like antitrust bodies across the world will have their hands full if the likes of Google, Meta and others attempt to tread this path – this time with the financial muscle that most governments of the day lacked.
