Tag: journalism

Posted on

Artificial Intelligence, Authenticity, and the Soul of Writing

Fresno Bee, March 5, 2023

Maybe I wrote this column. Maybe artificial intelligence did it. Does it really matter?

I asked ChatGPT to write an essay on the ethics of artificial intelligence. ChatCPT is an artificial intelligence device that is all the rage. The AI did a pretty good job. Its prose lacks a point of view. But its grammar is impeccable. And it is quick. It wrote a decent essay in a matter of seconds, highlighting concerns about AI, including the problems of bias, privacy, accountability, transparency and security.

It failed to note the problem of authenticity and cheating. This has been a significant concern among educators. Students are already using AI to write papers and do homework. One ironic recent case involves a student who used AI to “write” a paper on ethical issues involving artificial intelligence.

The cheating problem has human solutions. Teachers will need to re-conceive how they assess student learning. Students already cut and paste, and download papers. Desperate students can even hire surrogate writers. AI will make this easier — and cheaper. In response, we should emphasize oral presentations and in-class writing.

A further concern involves the possibility that AI will contribute to the demise of journalism and other professions that involve the written word. In the near future, newspaper columns, political speeches, novels, and film scripts could be written by AI.

My ChatGPT session noted this under the general category of “employment and economic impact.” It explained, “AI has the potential to disrupt industries and change the nature of work.” This understates the problem. Writing is an essential part of human culture. More than the loss of jobs is at stake. Rather, this is about the role of writing in human life.

Human writing involves perspective and personality. The ChatGPT seems to have been programmed to avoid taking perspectives. When I asked it about abortion, it began with a disclaimer saying, “As an AI language model, I cannot take a moral stance on whether abortion is right or wrong, as this is a complex and deeply personal issue that involves a wide range of factors and perspectives.” It then laid out several concerns from multiple perspectives with regard to the ethics of abortion.

Something similar happened when I asked it about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Republican plans for Social Security reform, and whether Biden is a good president. After a disclaimer, it recounted arguments on various sides of these issues. But it did not offer an opinion. This is clearly a matter of programming. This particular AI was programmed to avoid taking a side. One wonder what might result if an AI were programmed differently. I’ll bet it would be easy to program a computer to churn out Republican or Democratic boiler plate.

What’s missing here is human judgment — and the accountability that comes along with authenticity. Good human writing involves more than merely laying out a list of facts. It is also a way of exposing one’s commitments and one’s soul. Opinionated writing assumes that the writer behind the prose stands for something. And we hold authors accountable for their words. This process of soulful writing is part of what philosophers call authenticity.

Authenticity involves responsibility and personal engagement. Words belong to people. And we judge persons in terms of what they say and write. Human writing conveys a sense of who the writer is, what they feel, and what they value. Writing moves us because we imagine real people behind the words, who suffer, enjoy, celebrate, or grieve.

This spiritual element is connected to style and voice. And so far as I can tell, ChatGPT has not been programed to have a style, a personality, or a “soul.”

And yet, when I asked it how Hemingway would describe a bullfight, it came up with a paragraph featuring the “wild fury” of a charging bull, with horns “glinting in the sun.” As far as I can tell, Hemingway never put it quite this way. But frankly the AI surprised me with its story-telling prowess.

And no doubt, AI will improve. In the not-too-far future, movies, novels and opinion columns may be written by artificial intelligence. As far you know, this column was written by a human. But how would you know? And why would it matter?

Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article272686500.html#storylink=cpy

Posted on

Fake News and Media Literacy

It’s actually easy to tell real journalism from fake news. Here’s how

Fresno Bee, April 28, 2017

The fuss over fake news continues to unfold. In February President Trump accused The New York Times, NBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN of being fake news and the enemy of the American people. This week he said the “fake media” were falsely reporting that he had changed his position on the Mexican border wall. He also explained away recent reports about his low approval ratings as “fake news.”

President Trump seems to think that stories he doesn’t like are phony. But truth is independent of our desires. Not liking something does not make it false.

Journalists – like everyone else – have biases and opinions. But there is an important difference between biased stories and bogus ones. Every story has an angle. But objective reporting rests firmly on the ground of facts. Legitimate news organizations avoid lies and fabrications.

The objective truthfulness of real news provides the template that fake news imitates. Fake news stories are counterfeit. They look like real news. They appear to provide objective facts. But they do not. Rather, they try to sell us something.

Infomercials are fake news. Internet “click bait” is fake news. Newspaper advertisements written to look like news reports are fake news. The tabloids lining the grocery store checkout are fake news. Political propaganda is fake news.

Professional journalists do not produce fake news. The journalist’s code of ethics has four guiding ideas. Seek truth. Minimize harm. Act independently. And be accountable and transparent.

Mainstream news organizations sometimes exaggerate with attention-grabbing headlines and titillating teasers. But real journalists want to get the facts right. When they get things wrong, they admit it – or get fired.

It is not always easy to differentiate fake news from real news. That’s why we need substantial training in media literacy. We need to teach kids how to read a newspaper and how to avoid being suckered by online click bait. Kids need to learn the difference between objective news reports, the opinion page, commercials and outright propaganda.

We all need to understand that YouTube and other Internet sources offer suggestions based upon what the computer thinks we want to see. Some tech firms are proposing a technological fix for this particular problem. Google and Facebook are working to combat fake news by changing how search and news notification functions work.

The technological fix is good. But the problem of sorting out fact from fiction will remain with us. Fake news is an ancient problem. Socrates was executed because false rumors were spread about him. Charlatans and quacks have always taken advantage of the gullible and the ignorant.

Wisdom teaches skepticism and self-restraint. A story that is too good to be true is likely not true. We are often beguiled by our biases. We want to believe things that flatter our egos and reinforce our deepest beliefs. Psychologists call this “confirmation bias.” But wanting something to be true does not make it so.

So while technological solutions can help reduce the proliferation of fake news, the real solution is critical thinking and self-examination.

The most obvious key is to seek out multiple sources of information. You should also compare what you read or hear against commonly held background knowledge. Critical media consumers also ask some of the following questions:

▪ Who is speaking, what is the source of their authority, and what biases do they have?

▪ Is the story trying to sell me something or advance an agenda?

▪ Who is the intended audience? What is included in the message or left out?

▪ How does this story connect to other things I already know?

▪ What more would I need to know to evaluate this properly?

These kinds of questions should guide our reading of books, our evaluation of scientific reports, and our understanding of speeches, sermons and sales pitches. The process of sifting and winnowing is liberating and edifying. Critical thinkers make informed decisions in all aspects of their lives.

Critical thinking is essential for citizens in a democracy. In order to effectively participate in the project of self-government, we need to be able to distinguish between the phony and the factual. Let’s hope that the fake-news furor stimulates a renewed commitment to media literacy, objective reporting, and basic common sense.

http://www.fresnobee.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/andrew-fiala/article147400744.html