There Ya Go
This week is National Newspaper Week, not to be confused with National Artificial Intelligence Week, which doesn’t exist. Go ahead, Google it.
National Newspaper Week, on the surface, might not mean a whole hell of a lot to you, but it does to Tara and me.
And it should to you, too. Both Tara and I write about the importance of community newspapers on this page from time to time, so I don’t have to run through my thoughts on that. If you’re reading this, you already know anyway. But what you might not know is, we’re not alone. Not by a long shot.
Editor & Publisher — E&P for short — recently posted a story based on research by the Pew Research Center. The survey showed that although AI such as chatbots and ChatGPT is being used, according to the survey, about one-in-10 U.S. adults say they get news often (2%) or sometimes (7%) from AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Gemini. An additional 16% do so rarely. Most Americans, 75% of us, say they never get news this way.
In addition, less than 1% of Americans say they prefer to get news from chatbots rather than from other sources of news.
Music to my oversized ears. Also, adults under 50 are slightly more likely than older Americans to get news at least sometimes from AI chatbots (12% vs. 6%). However, there are much larger age differences when it comes to overall chatbot use. Americans who get news from AI chatbots also have mixed experiences with the news they get there – particularly when it comes to perceptions of its quality.
A third of those who use chatbots for news say they generally find it difficult to determine what is true and what is not. About a quarter (24%) say they find it easy to do so. But the largest share (42%) isn’t sure. Meanwhile, about half of adults who get news from AI chatbots say they at least sometimes come across news there that they think is inaccurate. That includes 16% who say they see this extremely often or often. Another 22% say they rarely or never see inaccurate news on chatbots, while 29% aren’t sure.
Among Americans who get news from AI chatbots, 59% of adults ages 18 to 29 and 51% of those 30 to 49 say they at least sometimes see news on chatbots they think is inaccurate. By contrast, 43% of those 50 to 64 and 36% of those 65 and older say the same.
Here’s my point: Don’t always trust everything you see on the Internet because technology, as we all know, is only great when it works. If you want reliability, the truth and local coverage of county board meetings, city council happenings, school board meetings and youth sports, read the paper. Just like you can’t trust what you see on Facebook, you can’t trust AI all the time. I know we’re on the very tip of this strange and new iceberg and that someday AI will be as popular as pulled pork and airport apologies, but there’s plenty to be said about old-school news consumption. AI is here. Trust it?
My saving grace from this survey is that 59% of those between 18-29 see AI news that they think is just plain wrong. Yes, young ones, reading your newspaper is important if you care about what’s happening around you.
Maybe computers and machines are learning how to reason, learn and act like we do, but they can never replace us.
I make mistakes every week, whether it’s spelling, grammar or punctuation, in my stories. Everytime I do, I lose a little piece of my soul.
That’s the difference between me, a human, and technology. Would you trust a robot over me?
