Google’s ‘Genesis’ AI tool could help journalists save time. (Image: Photo by Daniel Thomas on Unsplash)
It is said that Google is testing a new AI-powered tool called ‘Genesis’. It’s designed to help news publishers write articles, but some fear it could lead to generic news stories.
Google is reportedly developing an AI tool to help news publishers write news articles. According to The New York Times, the search giant has already approached major news organizations, including The Washington Post, News Corp, the owner of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times itself.
The tool – called ‘Genesis’ internally – can consume information about recent events and generate news stories based on that information. Google believes that it can be used as an “assistant” for journalists by automating certain tasks, thereby saving them time.
It is said to have the potential to shield the news industry from the “pitfalls of generative AI”.
However, some executives who saw Google’s pitch described the AI tool as “shaky”, while two others said the tool advances the task of presenting accurate and artistic news stories to a more general arena.
“In partnership with news publishers, especially smaller publishers, we are in the early stages of exploring ideas for potentially providing AI-enabled tools to help our journalists with their work,” Jen Crider, a Google executive, told The New. York Times.
He added, “Put quite simply, these tools are not intended to and cannot replace the essential role journalists play in reporting, producing and fact-checking their articles.”
The development comes at a time when newsrooms around the world are debating whether or not to incorporate AI into their workflows. However, as the New York Times points out, organizations such as the Associated Press (AP) have already adopted AI and use it to write reports on corporate earnings.
It will certainly be interesting to see how Google positions the tool and how it differentiates between its PaLM 2-powered AI chatbot, Google Bard. In addition, since there is debate over whether AI will replace jobs – particularly in journalism and publishing – Google is positioning itself to develop new ideas for using generative AI and as an assistant rather than a replacement. I may feel the need to promote ‘Genesis’.
