The Associated Press (AP) has published standards for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for producing publishable content and photos for their news service. The AP urges staff workers to familiarize themselves with AI technology but stresses that it shouldn’t be used to directly produce material. The news company is one of a select handful that has put guidelines in place around the use of cutting-edge technology in their job.
Along with the standards, AP will also include a chapter to its Stylebook with suggestions for writers on how to cover AI-related themes. The goal of AP is to support AI experimentation while upholding safety standards and journalistic ethics. A journalism think tank called the Poynter Institute applauded AP’s work and asked other news outlets to create rules for using AI and communicate them to their audiences.
The guidelines emphasize how crucial it is to thoroughly review any content created by AI and treat it with the same respect as any other news source. News organizations have discovered useful uses for generative AI that don’t include content publication. AI tools, for instance, can help editors create article digests and come up with headlines or story ideas. Additionally, it can offer recommendations for revising articles or creating interview questions.
For the past ten years, AP has been experimenting with more basic AI, producing brief news pieces from sports box scores or business earnings reports. However, the organization plans to proceed cautiously and guard their journalism and reputation while investigating novel AI applications.
A component of AP’s collaboration with OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is the licensing of AP’s news story archive for training. This partnership aims to allay news organizations’ worries about AI businesses using their content without permission.
With the standards in place, AP hopes to acquaint its reporters with AI technology in anticipation of their need to report extensively on it in the future. The future chapter of the Stylebook will offer comprehensive advice on writing about AI while also acknowledging the impact of AI on a variety of societal spheres outside of business and technology.
