😺 AI in journalism

PLUS: "ChatGPT For X" arrives.

Welcome, humans.

Just days after Stack Overflow fired 28% of its staff—likely courtesy of ChatGPT—the platform published an article titled, “Is AI enough to increase your productivity?”

A friendly tip: don’t be like the carriage drivers who potty-mouthed automobiles in favor of horse-drawn carriages … it won’t age well!

Here’s what you need to know about AI today:

Journalists can use AI to communicate ideas & research.
We’re seeing the rise of vertical-specific AI tools.
OpenAI is officially selling shares at a valuation of $80B.
Paid ChatGPT users are getting access to DALL-E 3!

AI Is A Tool, Not A Threat To Journalism.

Journalists hate AI.

At least the ones we’ve talked to — they’re either concerned that AI isn’t a good enough writer or that it’s actually good enough to replace them. Basically, AI is the "guy she told you not to worry about."

Today, we're running a game of "Two Truths and a Lie" focused on AI's role in journalism.

LIE: AI “hallucinates” too much for credible journalism. Yes, there’s the fiasco of CNET publishing AI-generated articles riddled with errors.

But real journalism involves first-hand reporting. Last time we checked, ChatGPT isn't out here conducting interviews or grabbing a burger.

Where ChatGPT can help is with communicating that info (our how-to) and researching (this requires fact-checking). Plus, rumblings in SF are that hallucinations might vanish very soon.

TRUTH: AI will make it easy to churn out garbage content. There are already AI posts from content farms showing up on Google's first page.

If you're invested in SEO, take note. But the average reader knows bad writing when they see it, and if anything they’ll place a higher value on writing that feels “real”.

TRUTH: AI deepfakes will fuel misinformation. Yup. We saw a Joe Biden deepfake that sounded 100% real except for his words-per-minute count.

No silver bullet for this one (sorry), but social media platforms + news orgs should tag AI images/videos just like we do.

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“ChatGPT-For-X” Is Here.

DALL-E 3’s take on “an AI-first workflow”

The buzzword of 2023 in the workplace is “AI-first businesses”, which means using AI to automate steps in your workflows.

But so far, AI at work in 2023 has revolved around one-off ChatGPT prompts.

One reason is that ChatGPT is a general-purpose tool. For specialized tasks like sales, specialized software is needed.

Luckily, startup teams who have spent all of 2023 cooking up new software are finally starting to launch their big-brain creations.

Take these product launches from the last week:

Basis, an AI platform for accounting firms.
Warmly, which uses AI chat to convert sales prospects.
Tofu, an AI assistant for account-based marketing.
Moonhub, an AI-powered recruiter.

If you’ve been waiting for a ChatGPT specialized in doing X, it’s coming soon.

Bonus: Also coming soon? AI assistants that help you do anything…

Around the Horn.

Thrive Capital is buying shares in OpenAI at the projected $80B valuation.
Mustafa Suleyman and Eric Schmidt proposed an International Panel on AI Safety.
OpenAI is rolling out DALL-E 3 access to paying ChatGPT users.
Rumor has it that Apple plans to pack way more generative AI features into iPhones/iPads next year.

Intelligent Insights.

Some intriguing reads to lose yourself in when American Football inevitably fails to keep your attention this Sunday:

AI Could Spur an Economic Boom. Humans Are in the Way. (link).
Google’s ‘Wartime’ Urgency to Chase ChatGPT Shakes Up Culture (link).
Marc Andreessen’s “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto” (link).
Interview with ‘AI Godfather’ Yoshua Bengio: We need a humanity defense organization (link).