AI to replace "laptop class" jobs?

[AZRedhawk44]

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/3884324-artificial-intelligence-will-destroy-laptop-class-workers/

The closing paragraph of this irked me:

Many Americans will be shocked by the speed with which artificial intelligence changes their daily life. And just as the “new normal” sets in, there will be even larger changes. But as pink slips go out for online journalists, there will still be a need for a person able to fix a furnace.

I'm struggling to comprehend how an AI can be a journalist.  Then again, when I say "journalist" I am thinking of the plucky trio of Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen.  They wore out shoe leather chasing leads and asking people uncomfortable questions, or snooping in all sorts of offices and warehouses (the modern equivalent of which would be breaching security on a computer system). 

Will AI be able to breach ethics or laws in pursuit of stories where the moral good outweighs the wrongs incurred by the letter of the law?

[Boomhauer]

Being that the purpose of modern journalism is to generate propaganda drivel, AI easily handles that as we’ve seen numerous times with the Twitter bots and nonsensical AI written blogs.

[RoadKingLarry]

What a fascinating modern age we live in.
Won't be long (if not already) between "deep fake" and AI nothing you see on the news can be trusted.
 

[lee n. field]

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/3884324-artificial-intelligence-will-destroy-laptop-class-workers/

The closing paragraph of this irked me:

I'm struggling to comprehend how an AI can be a journalist.

How much of what you read now is AI generated?  I'm seeing bookface ads for a vague something that will generate blog posts for you.

[AZRedhawk44]

I can understand advocacy for products, but not actual journalism.

Not that there's that much actual journalism being done today.

[Bogie]

The middle managers also tend to call folks who merely crank out bad blog copy "journalists."
 
Some of the folks in India, etc., are paid by the word to produce the copy that you'll see in Amazon ads, etc., etc... They're lumped in.

[WLJ]

With many so called "journalists" seemingly coping and pasting from a common narrative script nowadays anyway could you even tell the difference?

[MechAg94]

IMO, the labor saving part of journalism is in filling in background fluff and other side info.  If a journalist is writing a story and needs a half page background info about a subject, an AI can throw that together and let the journalist write the key paragraphs of actual information.  All that is needed is to do some editing of the AI written part.  If the entire article can be written by the AI, then it wasn't much of an article to begin with.  From what I have heard, the AI just combines info from multiple sources.

I think everyone is going to have to consider what value their work is actually providing.  Hourly workers have already been through this and likely will in the future.  Corporate office people will now go through it as well. 

[dogmush]

The journalists you mention are fictional.

There has never been a real life version of them to be replaced.  AI can probably replace non fictional journalists as existed since the printing press was invented without too much trouble.

[Bogie]

IMHO, what we're really going to be seeing are "research engines" that can produce copy.
 
If what data is fed to the research engines is skewed...

[zxcvbob]

The journalists you mention are fictional.

There has never been a real life version of them to be replaced.  AI can probably replace non fictional journalists as existed since the printing press was invented without too much trouble.

Sure there are.  Local station investigative reporters.  I don't know if there are many left; I can't think of any current ones.  (A former one: Marvin Zindler in Houston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Zindler )  Dateline, 20/20, and 60 Minutes used to do that kind of journalism too and probably still do occasionally.

[dogmush]

Sure there are.  Local station investigative reporters.  I don't know if there are many left; I can't think of any current ones.  (A former one: Marvin Zindler in Houston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Zindler )  Dateline, 20/20, and 60 Minutes used to do that kind of journalism too and probably still do occasionally.

I am skeptical of this every time I hear this claim.  Did these mythical journalists exist, or did you just not have easy access to primary sources.

We know as historical fact that Dateline was rigging trucks to blow up as far back as the early 90s, and newspapers were manipulating content  in America back to the 1890s. (Remember the Maine!)  I firmly believe,  given human nature and the rush of power that comes from controlling public discourse that there have never been journalists as AZ described in the OP.

I would bet a bottle of good bourbon that the first caveman to describe to his tribe the neighboring tribes found while he was hunting/gathering adjusted the story to his benefit.

[zxcvbob]

I am skeptical of this every time I hear this claim.  Did these mythical journalists exist, or did you just not have easy access to primary sources.

We know as historical fact that Dateline was rigging trucks to blow up as far back as the early 90s, and newspapers were manipulating content  in America back to the 1890s. (Remember the Maine!)  I firmly believe,  given human nature and the rush of power that comes from controlling public discourse that there have never been journalists as AZ described in the OP.

I would bet a bottle of good bourbon that the first caveman to describe to his tribe the neighboring tribes found while he was hunting/gathering adjusted the story to his benefit.

I remember Marvin Zindler, Channel 13 in Houston, that's why I used him as the example.  (no, I didn't meet him personally.)  And I hedged my bet on the network shows because of things like the truck gas tanks.

[MechAg94]

I don't remember much detail about Marvin Zindler.  Just recall he was on the news on that channel and the "SLIME IN THE ICE MACHINE" catch phrase from his health inspection reporting was well know.  He seemed like self serving person to me, but that may just be my impression.  Maybe it is because I grew up 30 minutes from La Grange and some had other opinions. 

[zxcvbob]

I don't remember much detail about Marvin Zindler.  Just recall he was on the news on that channel and the "SLIME IN THE ICE MACHINE" catch phrase from his health inspection reporting was well know.  He seemed like self serving person to me, but that may just be my impression.  Maybe it is because I grew up 30 minutes from La Grange and some had other opinions.

He did get kinda big-headed and sensational after a while.