Human-centered journalism: The Jakarta Post

April 25, 2024

JAKARTA – As The Jakarta Post celebrates its 41st anniversary today, journalism may be on the cusp of something revolutionary.

The internet and later social media may have created seismic changes in the media industry by disrupting how news and content were distributed and monetized.

But if we are to believe proponents of artificial intelligence (AI), the change that is coming will be even more fundamental.

If anything, AI, especially generative AI, has the potential to change the nature of journalism itself.

Optimists have already been talking about machines, especially those powered by generative AI, replacing journalists and conducting basic tasks in journalism, from gathering information to publishing news, whether that be audio, video or text.

And we are not talking about something far in the future.

Search giant Google has already developed a tool, named Genesis, which will allow publishers to carry out the news-gathering process, combining materials from PDFs, transcripts, audio and video sources using AI. The tool, which has undergone testing by a number of publishers, will also help publishers create things like analyses, summaries or turn text into scripts and audio.

Some publishers, like JP Politikens in Denmark, have built their own AI models to help transition the newsroom into a more efficient, AI-powered one.

Domestically in Indonesia, with revenue from advertising continuing on a downward trajectory while the cost of manpower keeps rising, many media outlets have started to use AI to do the work.

As an industry, journalism has not been doing well over the last 15 years and it is easy to understand why publishers are eager to embrace AI as their savior.

But as with other new technologies