AI, Advertising, and the Future of Journalism Ethics With Subbu Vincent

Welcome to another fascinating conversation on AI In Journalism. In this episode, we discuss ethics and the future development of LLMs with our guest, Subramaniam (Subbu) Vincent – director of the Journalism and Media Ethics program at the Markula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.

We'll explore the complex world of online advertising and its impact on journalism, including the precarious balance between ethics and revenue. Subbu will share insights on the antitrust case against Google, the challenges newsrooms face in competing for ad dollars, and the ethical considerations in developing new ad tech solutions.

We'll also cover the controversy involving Perplexity AI and Forbes, touching on the legal and ethical stakes when AI reproduces journalism without attribution. Are we at risk of diminishing the value of journalistic labor in an AI-driven landscape? Is AI capable of providing reliable and emotionally resonant connections with humans, or are we attributing too much to these machines?

Join us as we question the direction of AI in journalism, from the reliability of Google search results to the shifting landscape of how younger generations consume news. This episode promises to be a critical evaluation of how technology is reshaping journalism and what this means for democracy and the dissemination of authentic stories.

Remember to subscribe for more thought-provoking discussions and share your thoughts and future topic suggestions with us. Now, let's dive into today's episode!

Time stamps:

(03:29) LLM’s tokenizing journalism for distribution.

(08:25) Perplexity AI acknowledges the new project has “rough edges”.

(12:19) Chatbot development.

(14:07) Human-like interaction illusions through machines.

(17:32) Concern about journalism becoming part of the LLMs.

(22:56) Ongoing issues of subjectivity in language, journalistic perspective and content.

(25:21) New journalism outlets need to challenge old and embrace democracy.

(30:50) News coming to us, rather than us finding the news.

(35:32) Subbu’s role at Markula in addressing challenges in journalism and AI.

(39:09) Recommendations on for ethics in news distribution.

(41:28) Business models of big tech firms and markets fail journalism.

(45:56) Ad tech struggles to distinguish news content from risk.

(49:37) Algorithms need to consider content and agency.

(51:11) Media industry lacks leverage and accountability.

Quotes:

"Are we headed to a future where journalists are merely laboring to supply tokens, pun intended to large language models and their applications?"

— Yumi Wilson (00:03:18 - 00:03:27)

"Are we tokenizing journalism literally because the use of power? The power to bring in people in the name of knowledge, and rightfully so, it's not like they're not distributing useful information, they are."

— Subbu Vincent (00:04:10 - 00:04:24)

"And I felt like what's ever going to happen to all the people who did the work and who wrote the articles and whose articles have a certain graphical interface to them, that have images, that have videos, that have methodology updates, that have some explanations of sourcing, none of that will be accessible to these users who are humans like you and me, unless they click and go through. But the click interest is already going down."

— Subbu Vincent (00:04:45 - 00:05:08)

"The dispute between Forbes and perplexity AI underscores the ongoing tension between AI companies and traditional media outlets, raising questions about the ethical use of content, proper attribution, and the future of journalism in an AI dominated landscape."

— Yumi Wilson (00:08:35 - 00:08:48)

"I'm just not a big fan of the jump from language capacity to news and information capacity because information itself is a judgment the human mind is making when encountered with a set of words."

— Subbu Vincent (00:12:19 - 00:12:32)

"My thing is, if you start with democracy, the job that journalists are doing, they're not doing just for information's own sake. That's the output of journalistic work."

— Subbu Vincent (00:18:35 - 00:18:46)

"Now I've been noticing lately, and I've been traveling a bit, that the Google search results on page one are mostly ads or it feels bot-like."

— Yumi Wilson (00:26:55 - 00:27:06)

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Further Info:

Follow Subbu Vincent on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ndelkamiller/

“Perplexity AI Vs Journalism: The Risks We Need To Anticipate” - https://www.forbes.com/sites/subramaniamvincent/2024/06/25/perplexity-ai-vs-journalism-the-risks-we-need-to-anticipate/

“Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas responds to plagiarism and infringement accusations” - https://www.fastcompany.com/91144894/perplexity-ai-ceo-aravind-srinivas-on-plagiarism-accusations

“What is Journalism and Media Ethics?” - https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/journalism-and-media-ethics/

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