Newsroom Robots

Craig Newmark, internet pioneer and founder of Craigslist, joins Nikita Roy to talk about the past, present, and future of AI. 

Craig is a visionary whose profound contributions have shaped the landscape of digital platforms and supported the pillars of journalism. 

As the founder of Craigslist, he revolutionized the classified ads sector and transformed how people buy, sell, and connect within their local communities. 

Beyond his impact on the internet's landscape, Craig is a dedicated philanthropist, notably through the Craig Newmark Philanthropies where he has become a beacon of support for the work of journalists. 

His philanthropic journey is marked by significant contributions to some of the leading journalism schools, including the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism, aiming for a future where education in journalism is accessible to all, free of tuition​​. 

Craig's generosity has been instrumental in establishing the Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at Columbia University. 

His vision for a well-informed public has also led to supporting the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public addressing the critical issues of mis- and disinformation​​.

Craig Newmark Philanthropies has contributed to Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society which supported the launch of a three-year initiative called the Institute for Rebooting Social Media.

Craig has contributed to several other universities, focusing on initiatives that support journalism, cybersecurity, public service for veterans, and the digital information ecosystem. 

In this episode, Craig shares his thoughts on the challenges posed by large language models and how philanthropy plays a vital role in supporting the integration of AI into journalism. 

📢 Announcing the launch of the Newsroom Robots Academy. 

The Academy will offer short online courses designed to introduce you to generative AI, complete with industry-specific insights.

Join Nikita Roy, who will co-teach these courses alongside Jeremy Caplan, writer of the Wonder Tools newsletter and Director of Teaching and Learning at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York.

Upskilling has become more crucial than ever. Through the courses offered at the Newsroom Robots Academy, you'll be able to leverage the capabilities of generative AI in your work as a media professional.

Sign up now to be among the first to know when course registration opens.

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From fine-tuning large language models, to discussing modular journalism, to developing an AI tool to help track misinformation, there’s a lot to unpack from this week’s conversation with Alessandro Alviani, the product lead for AI at Germany’s Ippen Digital. We build upon the first part of our conversation from last week, where Alessandro shared his editor-centric approach toward building AI products. 

A core takeaway from this week's episode is the value of fine-tuning large language models on a newsroom’s content. 

Fine-tuning is the process of taking a pre-trained language model that understands general textual patterns and customizing it by training the algorithm on writings from a specific domain – in this case, Ippen Digital's own journalistic content. By fine-tuning models on Ippen Digital's extensive corpus of local German reporting rather than just using out-of-the-box models like GPT-4, they are working on enhancing accuracy for tasks like headline writing, lead paragraph generation, and article summarization.

Their editors and developers work side-by-side to ensure the AI's outputs match the desired quality standards and editorial voice. 

Additionally, Alessandro spotlighted their work in building personalized news experiences enhanced by modular journalism or “intelligent content.” Modular journalism involves breaking down articles into discrete, interchangeable components centered on key semantic themes – historical context, opposing views, critical data, etc. These content blocks can then be dynamically mixed and matched by an algorithm to generate personalized news experiences for different reader interests and preferences.

We also discussed how developing AI assistants to break down a human-written news story into modules can enable the creation of customized article versions matching different reader interests or news products.

Such repackaging of information to cater to diverse audiences is one of the potentials of AI in the newsroom. Thoughtful implementation of augmented writing tools could catalyze more engaging, personalized news without compromising editorial integrity. 

Of course, prudent precautions are necessary to develop algorithms in the newsroom. While AI has much potential for accelerating and enhancing reporting, we must understand its limitations in fully automating high-caliber journalism. The heart of quality storytelling – weaving together evidence and narratives to reveal truth and empower civil discourse – remains an irreplicable, fundamentally human endeavor.

Ippen Digital’s stance to develop AI solutions that empower rather than replace reporters seems wise. By bonding human creativity and AI productivity with an ethical approach to automation, journalism may structurally shift yet hold fast to its sacred commitments to transparency, accuracy, and public enlightenment.

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Rather than AI replacing journalists, Alessandro Alviani believes editorial teams can leverage AI to enhance and augment their work. 

Formerly as the Editorial Director at the Microsoft News Hub, Alessandro experienced firsthand the consequences that replacing human editors with automated systems caused. Drawing from his experience he says that the key is to empower journalists with AI tools rather than displace them. "It's our responsibility to help editors develop a more realistic approach to AI," he says.

Now, as the Product Lead on AI at the German newsroom Ippen Digital, Alessandro has led the creation of a range of innovative AI products - from interview transcription tools to illustration generators - with transparency, responsibility, and human oversight as key principles. 

What I found particularly interesting was his three-pronged strategy towards an editorial-first approach to building AI products: internships with his product team, having two editors embedded within his 10-person team, and deep-dive discovery sessions across their newsrooms to understand editorial needs. 

This approach, which emphasizes collaboration and hands-on involvement, led to innovations such as an editorial assistant that was developed with input from human editors. With transparency and human oversight as guiding principles, Ippen's AI team built a self-evaluation system on top of their generative AI tools to automatically evaluate the quality of their output.

Through their internal AI training programs, Ippen Digital strives to give every employee - not just technologists - a solid understanding of how AI models function, where they fall short, and why human judgment is irreplaceable.

My biggest takeaway from Alessandro was this: by proactively shaping how AI gets built and deployed, journalists have an opportunity to set their direction. The future of news isn't human versus AI - it's human augmented by AI. And for the survival of quality journalism, getting that balance right is imperative.

In the second part of our conversation out next week, Alessandro discusses how Ippen Digital is working on fine-tuning large language models for specific newsroom tasks. He also discusses his collaboration with colleagues at The Times of London as a 2022 JournalismAI fellow, where he developed a tool and methodology for journalists to track manipulated narratives, especially those from state-run media.

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Jeff Jarvis joins Nikita Roy in the second part of his conversation to discuss how journalism business models will be affected by the rise of generative AI.

In part one, Jarvis shared his thoughts on whether generative AI companies should be allowed to use news media's copyrighted content to train their AI models.

Jarvis has been the director of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York and the author of "The Gutenberg Parenthesis: The Age of Print and its Lessons for the Age of the Internet." He also co-hosts the podcasts "This Week in Google" and "AI Inside"..

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Jeff Jarvis joins Nikita Roy to discuss whether AI companies should be allowed to use news media's copyrighted content to train their models. 

Jarvis is a veteran journalist and professor who recently testified to the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and Law on AI and the Future of Journalism. He's been the director of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. He is the author of six books, most recently "The Gutenberg Parenthesis: The Age of Print and its Lessons for the Age of the Internet." He co-hosts "This Week in Google" and "AI Inside" podcasts.

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Aliya Itzkowitz and Sam Gould from FT Strategies join Nikita Roy to discuss the capabilities of multimodal AI and AI agents within the publishing industry. Discover further insights and practical examples of these technologies in the Newsroom Robots newsletter, featuring insights from host, Nikita Roy.

Aliya is a Manager at FT Strategies where she has consulted over 30 publishers across Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. Her work focuses on the critical shifts facing publishers today, including rethinking revenue models and understanding how to leverage AI. Before the FT, she worked at Dataminr, bringing AI technology to newsrooms, and at Bloomberg as a journalist. Aliya has a BA from Harvard University and an MBA from the University of Oxford.

Sam is a data scientist at FT Strategies and has worked in consulting, helping clients to solve strategic business challenges using data. He has helped organizations in both the public and private sectors, from tech to healthcare to consumer products, define their AI roadmaps and strategies. He has also worked as a data scientist, designing and building data and AI systems. Sam designed the FT Strategies AI Design Sprint methodology working in partnership with the Google News Initiative.

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Aliya Itzkowitz and Sam Gould from FT Strategies join Nikita Roy to discuss their AI Design Sprint that they used to help nearly 20 publishers identify and validate potential AI opportunities. 

Aliya is a Manager at FT Strategies where she has consulted over 30 publishers across Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. Her work focuses on the critical shifts facing publishers today, including rethinking revenue models and understanding how to leverage AI. Before the FT, she worked at Dataminr, bringing AI technology to newsrooms, and at Bloomberg as a journalist. Aliya has a BA from Harvard University and an MBA from the University of Oxford.

Sam is a data scientist at FT Strategies and has worked in consulting, helping clients to solve strategic business challenges using data. He has helped organizations in both the public and private sectors, from tech to healthcare to consumer products, define their AI roadmaps and strategies. He has also worked as a data scientist, designing and building data and AI systems. Sam designed the FT Strategies AI Design Sprint methodology working in partnership with the Google News Initiative.

Sign up for the Newsroom Robots newsletter for insights from host Nikita Roy.

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Nina Brown and Jared Schroeder join Nikita Roy to break down the intellectual property implications of generative AI models and explore the legal implications of using generative AI in newsrooms. 

They examine the risks and liabilities associated with Generative AI outputs and historical legal precedents that could shape Generative AI regulations.

Nina Brown is an award-winning assistant professor at the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. She researches the legal issues with deep fakes, content regulation on social media, and emerging issues related to works created by artificial intelligence. She holds a J.D. from Cornell Law School and practiced law for several years before joining the Newhouse faculty. 

Jared Schroeder is an associate professor of media law at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. His research focuses on freedom of expression and emerging technologies, particularly in press rights in the networked AI era. He is the author of three books, including his upcoming book, The Structure of Ideas: Mapping a New Theory of Free Expression in the AI Era, published by Stanford University Press.

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Felicitas Carrique, Executive Director of the News Product Alliance joins Nikita Roy to discuss the key components of building a successful AI product strategy in newsrooms. She also discusses the role of AI in the product development process and offers insights on evaluating AI tools and vendors.

As the Executive Director of the News Product Alliance she has built a community of support and practice for news product professionals and product thinkers working together toward a more sustainable and ethical future for the news industry.

The Future Today Institute's 2023 Tech Trends Report spotflighted her as "One to Watch" in the news industry for her leadership. 

In her prior role as the Innovation Director at Sembra Media, Felicitas worked extensively with news organizations across Latin America, Spain, and the United States, promoting innovation and spearheading product design and systems development within the organization.

Felicitas is also a Professor and guest lecturer in several universities, including Universidad Católica Argentina, where she co-created the first news product class in Latin America.

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Referenced:

• Custom GPT - AIProductGPT: Add AI to your Product

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How does a newsroom leader spearhead AI innovation when AI still remains a buzzword to much of their staff? 

Louise Story joins Nikita Roy to highlight the opportunities AI presents for reporting, content creation, user experience, and personalization. Story also discusses the role of journalists in the AI era and the potential impact of generative AI on the business model of the news industry.

Louise is the former Chief Technology & Product Officer and Chief News Strategist at The Wall Street Journal. She’s also been the Executive Producer & Senior Editor of Live Broadcast at The New York Times and taught at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and the Yale School of Management. 

With her unique blend of journalism and technology expertise, Louise has pioneered AI innovation in one of the world’s most prestigious newsrooms. She’s the industry’s first and only individual to have worked as a senior masthead news coverage leader and a chief technology officer, and the first woman to serve as CTO at a major U.S. news organization. As a veteran journalist who drove major AI implementations at The Wall Street Journal, Louise broke down seemingly abstract concepts into an actionable vision for news companies.

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Referenced:

• News Industry: What to Do on AI Right Now
• AI and News: Tech Basics

🎧 Listen to the full conversation on leading AI innovation in media, available now on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and other major podcast platforms.

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