How The Ledger plans to incorporate AI
Tech could upend the media industry, too
Good morning! Today is Saturday, July 15, 2023.
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Our series this week underscored the need to use AI as a tool, with humans in control; We’re sticking with human-written articles and using tech to become more productive
I hope you enjoyed our series on artificial intelligence this week — “Faces of AI” — that showed vivid examples how people and businesses are using newly available artificial intelligence tools.
Like a lot of you, we had been hearing a lot about artificial intelligence since last year’s launch of ChatGPT. But we didn’t know much about it, other than its ability to perform the kind of “parlor tricks” Kevin Carney of Kingsmen Software talked about in yesterday’s article. (He used the example of having AI create an image of a bare-chested Nicholas Cage riding a unicorn. I still don’t know how to do that, but I did successfully use ChatGPT to write some jokes for a birthday party of a friend who turned 50 in April. They even got some laughs.)
One of the great things about journalism is when you don’t understand something, you have license to ask questions of anyone and learn. My friend Doug Miller, the former investigations editor for McClatchy Southeast, had similar questions. I linked him up with a couple talented business-minded freelancers, Hannah Lang and Kerry Singe, as well as Ledger staff reporter Lindsey Banks, and they produced this week’s insightful series that told our readers just how local businesses are using AI, in different industries — and how they view its potential and its drawbacks.
We’re going to keep on top of this emerging issue and look for those interesting and surprising trends that develop.
Bottom line: My big takeaway from this week’s “Faces of AI” series is that AI is a technology that has the power to reshape how many of us work. It will lead to the creation of new businesses and new roles at existing businesses. It will make many of us more productive. But it also poses a new set of challenges that remain to be solved, and it will make some positions obsolete. One recurring theme this week from business leaders we spoke with was the need to continue to have human involvement.
That’s our philosophy here at The Ledger. Some of you might remember the thought experiment we conducted a couple years ago, when we had an artificial intelligence program called Jarvis write our entire newsletter. (Jarvis has since been renamed “Jasper,” supposedly after Marvel/Disney threatened to sue over alleged similarity to an AI character in the “Iron Man” movies.)
Jarvis did an admirable job, and he (?) did it quickly. But he was also dry, unoriginal, and made mistakes, such as suggesting readers “take a walk through Olde Towne East neighborhood” as one of 11 recommended activities in Charlotte, which has no such neighborhood. Other recommendations seemed unusual, including “shop at Northlake Mall” and “eat at Carrabba’s Italian Grill.”
Since then, the discussion of AI in our industry, like in a lot of industries, has only accelerated. ChatGPT has shown that AI bots can write passable articles. Seeing that, some people have asked us if AI will eventually make our jobs obsolete.
Honestly, when it comes to The Ledger, I think the answer is “no.” The kinds of articles that we write — original, relevant, current and based on conversations with people — can’t be replaced by computers. At least not in the foreseeable future.
On the other hand, if our strategy were to churn out material aggregated from social media, rewrite press releases and produce timeless articles engineered to attract hits from search engines … the answer could be “maybe” or even “yes.” Right now, for instance, you can easily use AI to write articles such as “7 Charlotte restaurants to get a good taco.” (I did that yesterday in about 30 seconds with the free AI program Google Bard — they might not be the seven places you would choose, but there were no obvious errors.)
‘Tsunami of crap’ incoming? Some futurists have estimated that in the next few years, more than 90% of internet content will be generated by AI. In a podcast interview last month, Bloomberg Media’s chief revenue officer predicted that “AI will create a tsunami of crap.” A media watchdog group in May found dozens of new news sites that appear to be almost entirely written by AI. “A new generation of content farms is on the way,” it predicted.
In an environment in which people are surrounded by low-quality, derivative bot-produced information, we think that original, insightful, human-created articles from trusted brands like ours will stand above the pack. AI does a decent job of synthesizing information that’s online or is already known, and it makes mistakes. The Ledger prioritizes accuracy and truth and delivers insights on new topics by talking to local people who possess information that is unavailable online. We think readers will be smart enough to spot the difference — and continue to value our approach.
Although AI won’t do our writing, there are some AI-based tools we use to become more productive, such as:
Otter.ai. This speech-to-text tool allows us to quickly transcribe conversations. You take an audio recording, upload it, and it provides a mostly accurate transcript in just a few minutes. The old way to record interviews is to use a cassette recorder, then play the recording back and type the conversation in a word processor. Otter saves us hours of time.
My pre-AI-era recording device and transcription assistant. It has been replaced by a speech-to-text service called Otter. Descript. Descript is similar to Otter, but for podcasts. Lindsey Banks on our team uses it to edit The Charlotte Ledger Podcast. It provides a transcript of the conversation, and when you edit out an “um” in the text, Descript removes it from the audio file. It is much faster than making the edits as you listen. Lindsey can edit a 30-minute podcast episode in about an hour — a substantial time savings.
We have experimented with having AI summarize articles — the short “in brief” section that appears on Saturdays and at the bottom of our regular newsletters during the week. But the summaries are too unreliable to use consistently.
There are a number of other AI-powered tools we’re watching to improve our work, too:
ChatGPT has a premium service that allows access to a feature called “Code Interpreter,” which lets users who are not data specialists easily analyze large databases. This will allow us to spot trends more quickly in examining, for instance, building permit data or census figures, without having to be experts in Excel or sophisticated database software.
Some products can summarize large PDF files, or create chatbots from them. Imagine creating a chatbot based on the city’s complex, 600-page Unified Development Ordinance, which could provide answers on hard-to-find and hard-to-understand concepts.
We have a couple other AI-related projects we’re experimenting with but aren’t quite ready to discuss. If and when we are, we’ll be sure to let you know.
If you have any ideas for us on how AI might help us improve local journalism in Charlotte, drop me a line.
Personally, I like browsing the 250+ AI programs on a website called Supertools. Some are amazingly creative. I admit I don’t understand all of them.
We’re excited by the prospect of enhancing our capabilities with new technologies. Businesses need to continually innovate and improve. History is littered with companies that didn’t.
But we’ll make sure, now and in the future, that we humans remain in charge. —Tony Mecia
🎧: Charlotte tech founder dishes on the future of AI
We have one final, multimedia installment of “Faces of AI” — a podcast with a Charlotte tech founder who is incorporating AI into her business.
Lauren Marturano has a front-row seat on how AI works and where it is heading. She’s the founder and CEO of Zinnia, a tech platform that helps businesses plan events. Some of the software is powered by AI.
In a conversation with The Ledger’s Tony Mecia, Marturano discusses:
her experience building a tech company in Charlotte
the challenges facing women in the tech industry
advances in AI that are improving companies’ productivity
“This is a huge, pivotal moment for technology, and probably the biggest one we’ll see in our lifetime,” Marturano says. “… AI is going to totally transform the way that businesses run and operate. Companies that don’t adapt to using AI, I think, are going to fall pretty far behind.”
How to listen: The weekly Charlotte Ledger Podcast is available on our website, as well as on podcast platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast and Google Podcasts. —TM
Did you miss any of our AI series this week? Here’s how to catch it
The Charlotte Ledger’s “Faces of AI” series, available to paying Ledger members (🔒):
MONDAY: Interest in artificial intelligence has surged in the last year — and Charlotte businesses are starting to experiment with it. (Series overview/introduction)
TUESDAY: Local entrepreneurs are devising ways for artificial intelligence to innovate in one of Charlotte’s signature industries, financial services
WEDNESDAY: Leaders in creative fields such as web design, writing and editing are trying out AI — but some say it’s not for them
THURSDAY: Tips for small businesses of all kinds to harness the power of AI to become more efficient
FRIDAY: A local tech executive explains why ChatGPT is just the beginning of what’s coming — and how his company helps Charlotte businesses imagine the possibilities
🎧 PODCAST: The founder of a Charlotte-based startup explains how she’s incorporating AI into her company’s software — and where AI is going next
The series is available only to paying members of The Charlotte Ledger. If you need to sign up, you can do that here:
We’ll be back Monday with a regular, non-AI-focused edition of The Ledger.
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Staff writer: Lindsey Banks; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire, CXN Advisory; Contributing photographer/videographer: Kevin Young, The 5 and 2 Project