Google paying news outlets to use AI for writing stories
What's the story
Google is offering publishers thousands of dollars yearly, to use its AI tools for generating news stories via Google News Initiative (GNI), as reported by Adweek.
The six-year-old GNI program supports many initiatives including fact-checking tools, media literacy projects, as well as other resources for newsrooms.
This new venture into AI publishing tools could be a controversial move for Google.
Goal
Targeting smaller publishers and aggregating content
The program is said to target smaller publishers.
It helps them create aggregated content more efficiently, through indexing recently published reports from sources like neighboring news outlets, and government agencies.
These reports are then summarized and published as new articles using AI tools.
In return for a five-figure sum per year, media organizations must publish at least three stories daily, one newsletter every week, and one monthly marketing campaign using the tools.
Problems
No disclosure requirement and reliability indicator
Publishers associated with the program don't have to disclose their AI usage.
The aggregated websites are also not informed that their content is used to create AI-written stories on other sites.
The AI-generated copy uses a color-coded system that indicates the reliability of every text section. This helps human editors review the content prior to publishing.
Google informed Adweek that they are "in the early stages of exploring ideas to potentially provide AI-enabled tools to help journalists with their work."
Similarity
Comparison with Facebook's live video deals
This deal between Google and publishers is similar to Facebook's deals with publishers to create live video content in 2016.
Facebook paid millions of dollars to publishers to boost its video platform, leading many media outlets to "pivot to video."
However, Facebook later discovered it had miscalculated the number of views received by the videos, and ended its live video deals.
The media sector's "pivot to video" resulted in hundreds of journalists losing their jobs.