For a couple of years now, even in the world of information, the seductive but insidious presence of Artificial Intelligence has been increasingly felt, which after the pandemic and with the arrival of the ChatGPT search engine has taken a significant step forward. But above all, it was the launch of DeepSeek , artificial intelligence challenge low-cost launch by China at the heart of the American empire at the end of January to make us more aware of what the stakes in the confrontation between the great powers of the world and how central the technological frontier is for hegemony over the future.
What is artificial intelligence and how does it impact the world of information?
But what exactly is AI and what are the opportunities e risks Warehouse world of information? As everyone knows by now, AI is a technology that allows speed up e simplify the lI work in editorial offices journalistic, automating operations such as transcriptions and translations and freeing journalists from the most repetitive tasks. As happened at the beginning of the Internet, today no one knows exactly what AI will become and what the effects of its applications will be in the different fields of life and in particular in the world of information but, to orient ourselves in a new, fascinating but at the same time risky world, it is worth establishing some fixed points and some guiding criteria from now on.
- Like all new technological developments, AI is a challenge made of opportunity e risks but that we cannot fail to collect: ignoring, snubbing or demonizing AI would be going against history and progress even if the fears and worries are very understandable. But as the great Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza said "there is no fear without hope and there is no hope without fear".
- It is essential to take up the challenge of AI but turn it to our own advantage. Anything that can simplify and speed up work in paper or online newspapers is worth experimenting with, but with one non-negotiable criterion: THE LAST WORD MUST UNEQUIVOCALLY BE THAT OF THE JOURNALIST. AI will not be able to NEVER REPLACE HUMAN INTELLIGENCE because he is not capable of it and does not have the adequate sensitivity but he can lighten journalistic work of its most repetitive and boring aspects leaving more space for quality work and the creativity of journalists but also for checking the reliability of information.
- With these intangible assumptions that revolve around the centrality of the journalist and not knowing – nobody knows – what the evolution of AI will be, I believe that in this phase of our history it is necessary exploit at most, with great attention but without prejudices, all the possibilities for experimentation that AI can offer and those that we can ask of it. I will give an example that comes from my personal experience as director of the independent site of economics and finance FIRST online which I helped found and have been running for 14 years. With artificial intelligence neural networks we have created a MULTILANGUAGE platform which allows us to translate the texts on our site in real time and at zero cost to us and all users. We can translate our texts in the 16 most spoken languages in the world and therefore not only European ones but also more difficult languages such as Arabic, Chinese, the various Indian dialects, Japanese and so on. The quality is infinitely superior to that of Google Translate and the result is that the multilingual platform has significantly expanded our range of action and produced an increase in readers that varies between 10 and 15%. For us it is a step forward that we are very satisfied with and we will not give up experimenting with other uses of AI such as those suggested to us as improve titles from an SEO perspective e when to publish an article to ensure greater diffusion. One thing must be clear: we are open to all suggestions but the final decision is and remains the journalist's and if an AI suggestion does not satisfy us we will trash it, but certainly we will not reject it a priori.
The Evolution of Technology and the Inexorable Decline of Paper Newspapers
In this brief speech of mine I wanted to start immediately from AI in the world of information because this is the most current topic and it is the topic of the conference meritoriously promoted by the Corecom of Puglia, but I am perfectly aware that it is a bit like starting from the tail. In reality, if AI is the new playing field, the value of the digital revolution of information cannot be understood if we do not start from the origins and are not aware that in the world of media there is a before and an after and that the real watershed begins at the beginning of the 21st century with thearrival of the internet and challenges traditional journalism and starts, with great strides, the decline irreversible of the paper newspapers.
It's been a long time since we asked ourselves when the last copy of paper newspapers will be printed? In a year, in 3 or in five? We don't know for sure but we know it will happen. It may be sad, especially for those who have spent their lives reading newspapers with curiosity every day, but the fate of the paper newspaper is sealed and its existence will end with the generation of sixty and seventy year olds, the last one who still buys paper newspapers every day.
Four elements inexorably mark the end of paper newspapers: their sales I've been in for years fall frees it, their accounts are almost all (with rare exceptions) in the red, there are fewer and fewer newsstands and – what matters most – the new generations no longer read paper newspapers and, if they do get informed, they do it only online, on websites or social media. speed and the widespread gratuity of online information has struck at the heart of paper newspapers and there is no way back.
The future of online information
The future inevitably belongs to online information which has already revolutionised the old information with at least four new features: 1) with the speed that fulfills every journalist's dream of seeing Post a news item as soon as possible and not the day after as in the paper newspapers; 2) with the possibility of to correct instantly any typos or to constantly enrich and integrate the texts; 3) with the possibility of a documentation online always handy and incomparably more efficient than the paper one, dustily contained in the old folders; 4) with the possibility of exporting the texts online all over the world and of make them last forever.
But, despite the enormous potential it offers, online information still has a deficit of reliability and quality compared to the old paper journalism that is quite evident. Why is there no reliability and quality in paper or entirely digital sites? no new Scalfari and none new Indro Montanelli? All this is not a coincidence but is the other side of the nature of the Internet which brings with it the advantage of speed but also the defect of approximation and lack of control over the veracity of the news.
The problem of fake news and the reliability of online information
All this generates the abnormal diffusion of Fake News – which however are only the iceberg of the problem – but also brings with it the tendency towards flattening, standardisation, homologation, superficiality, conformism and poor reliability of online information unless the current rules of the game, which are the real Achilles heel of online information and that impede digital democracy.
But, net of foreign interferences that are frequent especially in electoral periods, where do fake news and the low quality and unreliability of online information come from? They come from the mysterious and arbitrary algorithms of Google, a private search engine that manages digital advertising in a quasi-monopolistic manner and which is entrusted with the choice of which contents to index or not and therefore the fate of all the sites on the planet. SEO is the playing field that Google has established for digital information but the religion of SEO, which all sites are forced to follow if they want to advertise their texts on the net, it is not at all the paradigm of good journalism, indeed often – in its obsessive simplification of texts and titles – it is the exact opposite.
But, in addition to the questionable Google indexing that contradicts the most basic rules of journalism because favors the news of the pack without distinguishing and valorizing the scoops and the originality of digital information, there is another aspect that distorts the market and it is the arbitrary accounting of contacts that often pushes Google to increase or decrease the audience of the sites according to its own and not at all transparent criteria. Not to mention the buying and selling online traffic which, although sometimes practiced by major newspapers, does not do credit to those who use it.
AI and Journalism: A Revolution to Be Governed, Not Suffered
Le distortions that the current regulatory causes in digital information strike at the heart of the online world and its business model because, by arbitrarily influencing indexing and accounting of visits, they end up influencing the audience and the consequent collection of advertising which is often a vital resource for the survival of sites around the world but which is mortgaged by the monopolistic presence of the large American search engines. Perhaps the time has come to banish hypocrisy and take note that, if online information is supplanting paper journalism, it would be reasonable – under certain conditions and in full transparency of ownership structures – to move the provisions foreseen for publishing from paper newspapers to online sites. The indexing and accounting of visits to online sites and the business model that supports them are not technical problems but the pillars of a great battle for digital information democracy which is an integral part of a more general battle for democracy and which it is time to open up in all its dimensions.
It is in this context of information – which demands transparent rules of the game and very different from those imposed by the Wild West which makes of The net is a real jungle – which is where the disruptive innovation of AI should be placed, which, as I said before, involves risks and opportunities but which is an unavoidable challenge. Certainly, the assumption of boring and repetitive tasks by AI can leave more space for editorial offices to devote themselves more to the quality of information and to more rigorous control over the truthfulness and reliability of news. But in editorial offices, AI can also contribute to developing new services that human intelligence is not always able to perform with the same efficiency. Among theAmerica andEurope there is a difference of AI setting: America would like the full deregulation to leave more room for innovation while Europe demands new rules of the game. The right rules exclude the excess of unhealthy bureaucracy but not innovation and, after the disasters created by the Silicon Valley Internet giants that have contributed in no small way to undermining democracy itself, only a blind person would think of the development of AI without adequate regulation.
AI in Journalism: An Ally, Not a Substitute for Human Intelligence
Let's welcome the spread of AI in today's journalism but – it is worth repeating – on condition that no one even remotely thinks of replacing human culture, experience, sensitivity and professionalism with that of robot algorithms.artificial intelligence can do a lot and it's right to use it but of course can not replace human intelligence. In this field there is a non-negotiable dividing line that no sensible person could imagine crossing: artificial AI must be at the service of the journalist and not the other way around and the final word must be firmly – both today and tomorrow – in the hands of the journalist who uses it. Only in this way can theAI will not be a threat but, on the contrary, a Big chance for today's and tomorrow's information that we must inevitably deal with.
