WHY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WILL IMPROVE JOURNALISM

Digitization manifested itself in three key moments for me: In 1995, I used a newspaper website for the first time – I think it was the “taz” – and it was immediately clear to me: the newspaper as we know it is an outdated model. What’s the point of writing deadlines, printing presses, trucking? It was obvious: the idea of the newspaper must be emancipated from the paper.

In 2007 I held an iPhone in my hand for the first time and thought: this will be the reading device of the future. As mobile as a newspaper, only much more practical. No black fingers, writing in any size, no paper waste. And: this is where the future of digital subscriptions comes in, so it’s back to being a business model.

Then, at the end of 2022, ChatGPT. I typed in the first few questions, read the answers and knew: most of what we’ve done in journalism in the last few decades will be done by these machines in the future. That will make us redundant or better. What really matters now is back in the spotlight: the news, in High German medium: die Zeitung.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is the biggest revolution since the invention of the Internet. Developments such as Bard (Google) or ChatGPT (OpenAI/Microsoft) resemble a monstrous technological wave that either crashes over publishers and destroys them, or strengthens journalism and raises it to a whole new level. A new level of quality, relevance and commercial appeal. Or the fall. It’s all or nothing.

Major technological innovations often trigger even greater waves of cultural pessimism. When the railroad was invented, people feared that the soul would be left behind. When the automobile was invented, the German emperor continued to rely on the horse. When photographs could be printed, some feared for the future of the written word. When computers entered the newsroom, many journalists were sure that the quality of the texts would suffer. They could correct more quickly and, therefore, formulate more carelessly and superficially.

The same is true now: the AI has caused a real panic. In Hollywood, actors and screenwriters are on strike because they fear being replaced by AI. And also in some newsrooms there is more skepticism towards progress and the desire to be able to slow down innovations. But that never works. And it has always been the surest signpost to ruin. The mocking look at the banal, ridiculous or just plain wrong results of bots evidences both the loss of reality and insecurity and the defiant self-assurance: humans will always do better. We will not.

ChatGPT or Bard are answering machines. They have impressively intelligent answers to just about everything. Of course, the information provided must first and foremost be truthful. And it remains the job of journalists to point out where the machines intervene and when they are wrong. But algorithms learn fast. And each user improves its quality. Its few errors are transitory phenomena. Soon, machines around the world will be responding based on real-time data in text, audio and video formats. These new answering machines have the potential to make or break not only search engines, but media as we know it. Why keep reading a newspaper or an app when answering machines instantly give you what you want to know? All available information is aggregated by the so-called “large linguistic models” in fractions of a second and processed as needed.

So what matters to journalists in the future is information that is not yet available. The winners are those who discover what should not come to light. They see what no one has seen yet. The competition to achieve exactly that, which has always been the essence of journalism, is open again.

Whether generative AI will empower and strengthen us journalists or make us superfluous depends solely on whether we draw the right conclusions from technological advances and opportunities.

One thing is clear: we need to understand, embrace and shape the opportunities of artificial intelligence rather than leaving this to the platforms alone. Cultural criticism, progress and technological skepticism as first reflexes are wrong.

But we must be realistic: If at the same time we do not quickly ensure a secure legal framework that gives creators of intellectual property a fair share, there will be no business model. And without a business model, there is no competition. And without competition, there is no independence or quality.

However, I would now like to focus exclusively on opportunities:

No one knows exactly how things will evolve, how habits and products will change. There will probably soon be AI-based editors-in-chief as avatars and video presenters as bots. What is clear is that AI will support many elements of traditional publishing processes and replace them step by step. The aggregation of texts, i.e. the collection of existing information, fact-checking, correction of spelling mistakes, translation, layout, image selection, text editing and production in the classical sense: all this will be done by machines in the future, and sooner than you might think. If we try to block this development to protect jobs, we are riding a dead horse and leading ourselves, the media industry, to ruin.

Sports results, election results, stock prices or labor market data, for example, are already created and analyzed automatically in an excellent way. Soon AI will be implemented deeper into our processes. A few months ago, we already built a print newspaper using AI without deviating from the digital article stock. From digital to print in a matter of minutes. This can help produce newspapers and magazines cost-effectively for a little longer than without AI.

But these efficiency gains can help above all to hone in on the true unique selling points of digital newspaper brands. It is not a question of making our offer cheaper, but of improving it. We have to reallocate financial resources. Or better: invest money in spirit.

Everything that has to do with content aggregation and production will gradually be replaced by AI. Anything to do with creating original content will remain the domain of journalists.

When almost everything changes, it is always especially important to define what will most likely not change, i.e. what to continue to focus on in the future.

I see three things above all else:

A good story is still a good story. The result of an investigation or a reporter’s observations do not lose relevance or interest because they are not read on paper, but on the screen of a smartphone. A good story doesn’t get worse because you used ChatGPT when researching or checking historical facts. The power of a good story lies in its relevance, its emotional intensity, its entertaining nature and the tension it creates.

Which brings us to the second criterion of timeless quality: A good story must be well told. However important and moving the essence of a story may be, if it is not well told – that is, vivid, concrete, dramatically thought out – it will bore. Language is the decisive matter. Those who love language, handle it with passion and care, treat it with respect, and yet always playfully challenge it, have an eternal competitive advantage.

To exaggerate, one could resort to the anecdote of the old married couple at the café: the two of them are sitting at the table, drinking a brandy, and every few minutes one of them says a number out loud, whereupon they both burst out laughing. At one point, a young man joins them and politely asks them what they are doing. It’s very simple, they explain. We’ve known each other for decades, we go to coffee every Sunday and we always tell each other the same jokes. At some point we started giving a number to each joke instead of tediously repeating it. I see,” says the young man, and continues to watch the two of them. 26. laughter. 35. loud laughter. At some point the observer becomes animated and tries it in turn: 17. Nobody laughs. Iron silence. Wasn’t the joke funny? It was, says the woman, but you have to know how to tell it well.

Which brings us to the third rule. Laugh instead of boring. A good story should not only move its readers, sadden them or make them think, it should entertain them as often as possible. There is no better and deeper link between a text or a film and the laughter of the reader or viewer.

AI can’t do all that on its own, but it can help with almost anything. And when it comes to defining the limits of AI in the process, we should be wary of hasty certainties. I, for one, have had to correct such challenging paradigms all too often in recent years.

Some examples: Does AI have no feelings? It is not true. In any case, AI has long been able to simulate feelings quite well and even situationally. And as for authenticity, please don’t be arrogant: feelings are sometimes simulated as mechanically by humans as by machines.

AI has no creativity? It is not true. Anyone who has dealt with machine-made music and algorithmically created poems or images should confirm otherwise. Some of the results are still awkward, others are already phenomenally inspiring.

And finally: doesn’t the AI have a sense of humor? It is also not true. Even in the remotest realm of nuance and irony, well-trained “great linguistic models” can occasionally rise to the occasion. Whether text or voice, the conversation with the bot not only offers access to an endless pool of jokes, but also to many spontaneous punch lines.

So instead of pitting the good human against the bad machine, it would be wiser to use AI to improve human journalism. The bot as a service provider. As an assistant to journalists, making us faster and better at creative thinking, developing original and relevant topics and forms of presentation, maverick opinion pieces and intelligent analysis, reporting based on real experiences. Whether it’s expertise conveyed in an understandable way, entertainment or live experiences, AI is everywhere and allows you to focus on the essentials.

The most important thing remains investigative journalism: the exhaustive research over days, weeks and months that brings new facts and perspectives to light. While AI streamlines the material and quantitative aspects of the profession, it can help focus on the intangible and substantive intellectual essence of journalism.

This is good news for any passionate journalist. The creation of unique content is increasingly crucial to publishers’ success. And this means concretely: the most important in the hierarchy of a media are, therefore, the authors.

This evolution requires a fundamental redistribution of resources and money. A shift from production to creation. Intellectual, creative and journalistic talent is, once again, the most important factor in the success of a publishing house. This has been forgotten here and there, but it has always been the case.

What is new is a greater focus on technology. Technology is not a secondary element of our business. It is part of the core. Only with the best technology and product developers and the most experienced artificial intelligence experts will publishers be able to achieve their goals. Technicians must be on a par with editors. They should be an early and integral part of any form of product development.

And something else will change: IQ will become less important, emotional quotient will become more so.

While the amount of knowledge has grown exponentially in recent decades, digital technology has helped us access and process ever-increasing and unwieldy amounts. We have become accustomed to outsourcing much of our knowledge. We no longer need to have everything at our fingertips. The extended recollections of our memory are called Google or Wikipedia. Why memorize everything when you can search and find it quickly.

This trend is reinforced, accelerated and amplified by generative AI. Even the conclusions of accumulated knowledge can be successfully delegated to a certain extent. Why analyze it yourself when ChatGPT can do it faster and better? But if machines increasingly and successfully take over the functions that define part of our IQ – for example, analytical skills – the sheer wisdom of a person’s IQ will become less and less of a competitive advantage. Because anyone can make use of it. The IC can be purchased in the future.

This applies less to what we call Emotional Intelligence: emotional intelligence, social intelligence, intuition, creative disruption. Emotional Intelligence is becoming increasingly important. The more precise the perfect machines become, the more relevant the charisma of the imperfect human being becomes. Emotional leadership and motivation, intuitive creativity and networking make the difference. This is where human intelligence will excel. This is where the competitive advantages and value creation of the future will emerge. This applies to research and science as well as to art and culture, entrepreneurship in general and journalism in particular.

The epochal change that generative AI represents is a historic opportunity. For society and for journalism. If we get it right, journalism will rise from the ashes like a phoenix. If we defend the old structures, soon only ashes will remain.

If we get it right, machines will be at the service of people. Not people to machines.

Ideally, publishers should return to their spiritual and content essence. The transformation of the music industry is repeated in journalism: the product, there first a record, then a CD, finally a chip, here first paper, then a screen, then a chip and its own retina, i.e. the support, becomes smaller and smaller, less and less important, finally invisible. Thanks to digitization and AI, the newspaper and its production are dematerialized.

In short: Pure content. The news. Middle High German: die Zeitung. Artificial intelligence then promoted something of a renaissance of the original idea of journalism. Or the rebirth of the newspaper.

Mathias Döpfner is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of  Axel SpringerGermany’s leading media group.