British media group Reach PLC, publisher of the British newspapers Daily Mirror and Daily Express, is exploring the use of ChatGPT, a chatbot with artificial intelligence (AI), in writing news reports. In particular, Reach wants to see if AI can help journalists with simple and routine tasks.
“We have tasked a working group of our technical staff and editors to explore the potential and limits of machine learning programs such as ChatGPT,” Reach CEO Jim Mullen told the Financial Times. “We see the potential to use this tool in the future to help our journalists. when creating the most mundane stories like traffic reports or weather forecasts. Or we can find more creative uses for it.”
At the same time, Mr. Mullen noted that he considers artificial intelligence solely as an assistant, and not as a replacement for journalists.
Reach is far from the first publisher in the world to think about using chatbots. Last month, media company BuzzFeed announced that it would partner with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. The company intends to use the chatbot in the development of personalized quizzes, tests, as well as the so-called listicles (from the English list – list, article – article), or articles in the form of a list of different facts and opinions like “10 most important books” or “20 reasons start leading a healthy lifestyle. The CNET website tried to use AI to write economic news. However, there were many errors in these texts. And Thomson Reuters has been using its own software called Lynx Insight since 2018 to analyze financial and economic data to help reporters prepare stories.