Artificial intelligence is making its mark, and fortunately (or unfortunately), it’s here to stay.
What we considered science fiction in the 1980s is no longer fiction. It was 1982 when KITT gave us our first glimpse with his talk-responsive screen disguised as a black Trans Am.
In 1987, RoboCop introduced us to AI’s good versus bad and the ethics behind it. The good AI being the creation of streamlined processes that led to more efficiency, and the lack of human emotion from an AI-generated robot that allowed for greater objectivity. The bad AI being the dangers of unchecked artificial intelligence, which brings up the ethics of it all.
Is it ethical to develop machines with human-like capabilities that lack humanness? Is it ethical to forgo human oversight by putting our trust strictly in AI?
I ride the fence on AI’s place in our lives. The social media capabilities, design options, location and navigation services, chat features, facial recognition and personalized recommendations are gamechangers. I’m sure I’m not alone in saying there are a lot of AI components I hope we never have to live without.
When it comes to news, and local newspapers especially, AI is a big NO for me. Recently, AI-generated newsletters have popped up in 47 states. These newsletters were created by an individual who uses AI to curate local news content lifted directly from trusted community newspapers without permission and without paying journalists for their work. The sites for these newsletters are strategically designed to look like local sources, but in reality it is merely AI scraping websites and extracting (stealing) content.
According to a recent Trust in Media study, local newspapers are the most trusted source of news in America. Local newspapers outperformed national papers, television and social media on every trust measure.
Eighty percent of Americans believe it is critically important to have a local newspaper, and nearly three out of four say their community would suffer without one. According to the study, readers consistently cite local newspapers as more transparent, more ethical and more invested in their communities. I couldn’t have said the last sentence better myself.
Readers rely on local newspapers because we deliver facts and accountability. We didn’t generate trust by an algorithm. Our journalists earned it by reporting from the frontlines on the stories that matter most, and they know because they live, shop and work in our communities.
When AI steals community news, it affects not only your local newspaper but it affects you as well. If you don’t need a subscription to know what’s happening around you, why buy one? This directly affects salaries of your local news source, and the community risks losing critical coverage. If we were to reduce staff and could no longer cover local news, AI would have no content to scrape.
It’s not like these bots are going to come to the Benjamin Russell football game and run up and down the field for four quarters or show up at the next Tallassee school board meeting. At the worst point, our communities become a news desert which leads to the spread of misinformation, loss of trust, reduced accountability and, in some cases, increased isolation and corruption.
There’s a lot at stake in the battle with AI. It’s not just your community’s news. It’s your community. It’s your livelihood, and it’s your trust. The best way to protect your local newspaper is to support it. Subscribe to it. Advertise to its enormous audience. And back the business that we do for you on a daily basis. If you’re not already a subscriber, I’m asking that you please consider joining our club of fact-based knowledge and accountability-driven journalists who show up every day for our readers.
Tippy Hunter is the general manager of Tallapoosa Publishers Inc. She can be reached at tippy.hunter@alexcityoutlook.com.
