The collapse of the mainstream news media’s financial model has affected more than just struggling journalists and those who consume their work. It may also represent a threat to democracy, creating vast news deserts and the opportunity for ill-intentioned players to fill the void with misinformation and disinformation. Given these high stakes, philanthropists, business professionals, politicians and others are dedicating time, energy and hundreds of millions of dollars to help sustain local news.
Amid this bleak landscape, it’s understandable that some in the industry view the next technology-driven revolution with trepidation. Generative artificial intelligence has had an explosive impact on journalism and the broader culture since Open AI publicly launched ChatGPT on November 30, 2022.
ChatGPT, which stands for Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer, is a large language model-based chatbot that can create content based on prompts fed into it. With more than 100 million users signing onto ChatGPT within its first two months on the market, the global financial firm UBS deemed it to be the fastest-growing consumer software application in history.
This project — based on interviews with journalists, academics, philanthropists and technology experts from around the globe — seeks to identify the potential perils and benefits of generative AI on local news business models and journalism itself.
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