Introduction to the Polis LSE Journalism and AI project

1. Prof Charlie Beckett
@CharlieBeckett
June 2019
What do we talk about
when we talk about
AI in journalism ?

3. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:
A collection of ideas, technologies, and
techniques that relate to a computer
system’s capacity to perform tasks
normally requiring human intelligence.

5. * How are journalists and news organisations
adapting to AI technologies?
* What are the challenges and
opportunities they present?
* What are the financial, ethical,
and editorial implications?

7. * Two structured roundtables with experts from
top newsrooms in New York and in Paris
* Countless other conversations with
journalists and technologists
What have we learned?

8. State of Play
&
State of Mind

9. Motivation:
* Why are we adopting AI technologies ?
* Where can they create value ?

10. Strategy:
* What is our journalism trying to achieve ?
* Do we have an editorial strategy ?

11. Participation:
* Can we be more human-centred ?
* How do we involve our people ?

12. Transparency:
* How do we explain automation ?
* How much personalisation is too much
personalisation ?

13. Initial feedback from newsrooms

14. Wow!
Huge opportunities for efficiency, engagement, and
innovation
Big questions about the complexity, costs,
ownership, management and ethics
Confusion over strategies, technologies and results

15. What is it?
Definition matters: how does AI differ from other
new technologies?

16. Reinforcing market
inequalities?
Barriers to entry
Best-resourced news orgs benefit
Others left behind

17. Strategy
First, have an editorial strategy beyond ‘digital first’
Different strategies for different elements or an
overarching ‘AI’ approach?

18. Leadership & culture
Familiar issues around change management and
technological adaption
Different levels of AI knowledge within leadership
Fears (jobs)
Myths (humans can’t be replaced)

19. Uses
Personalisation is the main focus
Content creation (robot story-writing)
Fact-checking/verification
Data analysis
Story-discovery
Editorial organisation

20. Collaboration?
Real desire to share knowledge, experience, best
practice and even technologies
Is there a role for cross-organisational development,
standards-setting?
Role of new intermediary organisations?
Need for AI journalism networks

21. The technology companies
Fear that companies like Google will dominate the
provision of AI tech
Need for support from tech companies like Google

22. Thank You