Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Do students need to memorize things anymore? (A Throwback Post)

Rote memorization was a large part of my education and my life as I grew up. The nuns had a way of smacking the hell out of you if you couldn’t remember all 50 states or their capitals. We also got put through the paces on our “times tables” with speed and accuracy showing equal value at that point.

Beyond that, we had to memorize a number of crucial things like our locker combinations and crucial phone numbers for home, grandma’s house and our friends.

(If you don’t believe me, ask anyone over the age of 40 what their home phone number was and they probably still have it committed to memory. Even more, when I was a kid, I would always call my buddy, Mark, who lived across the street to see if he could come out and play. Fast forward to me being in my late 30s and needing to have someone check on my dad. I still remembered that number, so I called his parents’ house at that same land-line number and got the help I needed.)

Today, we lack the need for such things in so many ways. I honestly have no idea what my kid’s phone number is, as my phone tells it to me. I also don’t have email addresses or websites memorized, as they are auto-filled or replaced by apps.

So, is memorization dead, and if so, is that OK? That question took on new meaning when I saw a couple opinion pieces in the Wall Street Journal. The first by professor Alex Green, talked about the ways in which AI has robbed his students of the ability of important thinking skills:

these core skills are no mystery. They involve an ability to sift through information and understand who created it, then organize and pull it together with logic, reason and persuasion. When teachers dream of our students’ successes, we want to see these skills help them thrive.

For that to happen, students must gain the ability to synthesize information. They must be able to listen, read, speak and write—so they can express strategic and tactical thinking. When they say AI is eroding their ability to speak and write, this is what they’re losing, often before they’ve ever fully gained it.

As much as I totally feel what this guy is saying, I can understand how students (or AI-proponents who aren’t students) could dismiss this as, “OK, Boomer” level complaints really boil down to a professor feeling less important than usual.

However, the second piece, by WSJ ed board member Allysia Finley, has me a bit more concerned about what AI is doing to younger brains through “cognitive offloading:”

The brain continues to develop and mature into one’s mid-20s, but like a muscle it needs to be exercised, stimulated and challenged to grow stronger. Technology and especially AI can stunt this development by doing the mental work that builds the brain’s version of a computer cloud—a phenomenon called cognitive offloading.

<SNIP>

Why commit information to memory when ChatGPT can provide answers at your fingertips? For one thing, the brain can’t draw connections between ideas that aren’t there. Nothing comes from nothing. Creativity also doesn’t happen unless the brain is engaged. Scientists have found that “Aha!” moments occur spontaneously with a sudden burst of high-frequency electrical activity when the brain connects seemingly unrelated concepts.

With that in mind, I go back to this early question and I wonder what you have to say about it as professors, journalists and generally smart reader-type folks:

Is memorization a necessary skill for college journalism students?

I know this might seem like a click-bait headline or like I have the answer to it, but this is an honest question for my fellow J-folk out there.

The reason I ask is because I heard a number of students grousing in my writing class about a gen ed course they all are taking that requires them to do (what I consider to be) an insane amount of memorization for tests. The exams are between 80 and 120 questions each and are to be completed within two hours. They also allow no aids, such as notes or books.

Since most of my classes are skills-based, I tend to avoid multiple choice questions or exams that go this route. However, since I let the students pick their poison when it comes to in-class exams, we do have a mix of “write this” and “pick this” kinds of questions, including multiple choice. However, I let them have the AP style book and whatever notes and homework I’ve turned back to them. My rationale is that the point of this course is to help you improve your writing/editing/reporting/whatever, so learning from previous successes and failures is par for the course in our field.

However, I have plenty of colleagues who teach large pit classes with more dates and places kinds of stuff who do use the “choose A, B, C or D” kind of questions, some of whom allow notes while others don’t. Is one better than the other? I don’t know. That’s the point of my question here.

Here are a few caveats for the discussion:

  • I know some fields need memorization because looking everything up at the time in which the information is needed doesn’t work well. If you’re majoring in a language, fluid speaking, writing and reading are crucial, thus, memorization is at the core of what we do here. Also, when it comes to the medical field, I don’t want to hear my doctor or nurse saying, “I don’t know… Just Google it!”
  • I used to be of the “what if you CAN’T look it up” denomination of our field. The idea of quick recall mattered when you didn’t have an AP style book at hand or you couldn’t get to the clip files to look something up. Now, we all carry computers with us that can tell us everything we need. (And if you’re going to make the “What if you don’t have service?” argument, I’d counter with, “You’re probably going to be eaten by the “Hills Have Eyes” people, so not knowing when the Council of Trent happened is probably not a priority.”
  • I also used to be of the “You need the basics of our bible” kind of person as well. That meant a lot of AP memorization or at least knowledge of where to go in the book. I still force the kids to read the actual book in early classes so they know where stuff is or what is in there, but now everything is searchable for a reasonable subscription fee on AP. We also have dictionaries online. (It also makes less sense to memorize AP these days, since it seems like AP is changing rules at a maximum volume every year.)

What I’m looking at is the idea of forcing memorization in journalism classes and requiring gen ed classes of our majors that rely on this kind of approach to education. Is this the best path forward for our students? If so, why? If not, what should we do then?

I look forward to your thoughts in the comments or via email.

Eight Years a Blogger: Come for the knowledge, stay for the snark

It’s hard to believe this thing is still going after eight years, kind of in the same way its hard to believe that the almond-colored refrigerator with the faux-leather texture and Bakelite handle that your parents bought in 1983 refuses to die. I always figured Sage would have decided I was more trouble than I was worth by this point, or I would have run out of bits of wisdom, weirdly effective exercises and opportunities to mock god-awful mistakes in the media.

Oddly enough, that’s hasn’t happened. And speaking of exercises, if you still want to get in on Dr. Vinnie’s Bin of Exercises and AI Joy, feel free to hit the link here.

This semester is guaranteed to be a little off as far as the blog is concerned, in that I found out last week I will need to teach a fifth class this term. It’s the second of the five that I’ve never taught before in my nearly 30 years of college teaching and the third of the five that’s not in my area of expertise.

Why, you might ask… Well..

 

The relative insanity that this blog provides me might be my only salvation, so let’s get started with a few thoughts to brighten your day (and allow me to blow off developing a giant roster of PowerPoints and podcasts I will likely use only once in my lifetime):

 

STUIPD IS AS STUIPD DOES, TOO: In digging through a ton of examples I wanted to use for the upcoming classes I am prepping, I was stunned at the level of general incompetence when it came to making sure things were edited before they went out. I’m not talking about internet memes or mom-and-pop operations posting on an AOL-Dial-Up-Friendly website. I’m talking about actual organizations with money and staff support.

The number of missing words, misspellings and generally bad writing made it tough to find quality examples for the kids. I mean, I can’t exactly say, “Here’s a great press release, if you ignore the three misspelled words in the lead and the sentence structure that makes Tarzan look like Shakespeare.” Of all the blunders out there, I had to highlight this one:

If you are in the state, promoting the state and having a fair for the state, the least you can do is spell the name of the state properly in the headline…

Also, for the sake of irony, I found this job posting for an entry-level PR position with these two key bullet-points back to back. And I SWEAR I didn’t PhotoShop this:

I looked at it three times and thought, “Is this like one of those tests where they try to trick you? Like that one speed test where you are supposed to read the whole set of directions first, so that you figure out you only need to do the first thing on the list?”

Or do they just really need proofreaders that badly?

Speaking of someone who needs a proofreader:

If you really need something that big to house that item, I feel sorry for your significant other…

 

DID THAT REALLY JUST HAPPEN? I’ve frequently noted that paranoia is my best friend, so much so, that I often find myself doing double-takes on things I swear I saw that turn out to not be as bad as I thought. It usually comes up when I see a sign for “angus” burgers or “first-hand jobs” or something where my mind drifts to the terrible error, even if there isn’t one.

That said, this Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel headline on my phone really should have freaked out a couple people somewhere at the newspaper:

For starters, that’s not Cavalier Johnson unless I have officially gone blind from computer monitor radiation. Here’s his official city photo:

I have no idea who the dude at the podium is, but Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito made a more convincing set of Twins than the two people in the photos above.

Second, and this is really what caught me, that has got to be the worst headline break any human or computer could have made with this story. When I saw that “Johnson speaks with black talk,” I think my brain broke, before remembering Robert Townsend’s spoof of how white people do stupid stuff in Hollywood.

I understand that everything can’t be perfect in every publication, but I also know there are certain topics that need a little more attention and care, due to their sensitivity and the long history of insensitivity associated with them. This is one of those where someone fell asleep at the wheel.

Conversely, sometimes we can really go a bit far in clarifying things for our readers:

Thanks for the clarification, CNN. Otherwise, I might have been confused…

And finally…

I, (FILL IN NAME HERE), AM HAPPY TO HELP (FILL IN NAME HERE): As is the case every semester, I got a series of “could you please squeeze me into your full Writing for the Media class?” emails over the past couple weeks. The excuses are usually the same (I missed my registration day, I accidentally dropped it, I died while donating my heart to my cousin, but thanks to revolutionary bionics, I’m back now…) as are the ramifications they use to nudge me in their favor (I need this to graduate, I can’t move on with out the class, I’m planning to join a biker gang but they won’t take me without a bachelor’s…)

This one came oh so close to moving me…

Look, AI can be helpful in some cases, but your really gotta meet it halfway…

And off we go on another semester-long adventure. Let’s stay safe out there…

Vince (a.k.a. The Doctor of Paper)

As Promised, Here is Dr. Vinnie’s Bin of Journalism Exercises, Complete with AI Toys

It might not be as cool as opening Marcellus Wallace’s case, but I hope this pile of exercises will still make you as happy as Vincent and Jules.

 

As many of you are starting back to school, I figured I’d break radio silence with some goods I promised to deliver by the end of the summer. Back in May, I asked what kinds of things you needed from me and you were all nice enough to hit me with some ideas. Some were really concrete (“These kids need stuff to learn how to write a #%^#ing lead.”) while others were more nuanced (“They need to play with AI, but in a way that helps them see what it can and can’t do. I have no idea how that would work, though…”)

I’ve put together a bin of stuff that tries to cover the gamut of needs, while offering you choices as to how to apply the exercises in your own schools and for your own needs. Think of each of the files as kind of a Swiss Army knife of opportunities that you can use as you see fit.

It should go without saying that the content is either made up or fictionalized versions of stuff that actually happened, so don’t freak out if you see something and think, “Oh my lord! What hath hell wrought!”

Here’s a brief overview:

Breaking News/Ongoing Situation Stuff: A couple files contain information that is divided into several stages of release. The idea is that, just like a breaking news story, or an ongoing event, information is important compared to other information you receive.

It’s meant to mirror the “King of the Mountain” exercise approach we blogged about some time ago, with newer information forcing students to reconsider what’s most important in updating their content and giving them the critical thinking skills needed to do so.

There is also a straight-up crime story with some quotable material for you to play with.

Raw Materials Folder: There is a collection of nothing but interviews on topics that seemed relatively universal (Fires, Campus Illnesses, thought on Gen Ed classes, TikTok etc.) that students did over the years. I stripped out all the names/identifying features for this and left you with some red text where you can insert names that reflect your student body, places your students would know and so forth.

There is also a couple city council stories that are god awful that I rebuilt from local newspapers with name changes, area changes and so forth. Those can be helpful if you want them to work on revising bad copy or with some of the AI stuff we’ll talk about later.

Standard Story Stuff: I’ve put together a list of standard stories that we all tend to write in various types of journalism (breaking news, meeting/speech/news conference, localization etc.) with some suggestions regarding length and source count.

If it’s more of a reporting class, obviously, you can send them out to do stuff, but I included these for the media-writing folk who might not have students ready to go the full “Lois Lane” out there. These can meld nicely with some of the stuff in the raw material folder.

I also tossed in a “canned game story” for people who need to take a shot at sports writing before they cover a game. It includes stats, scores and post-game interview quotes that can be used to build a solid game recap on a pretty fun game.

AI Fun: I build several AI exercises that allow the students to see how AI can be really helpful and where it can fall short. It includes a trial run for them at something I did for the blog over the summer, involving interview questions. A couple of them also can be used on the raw material files to have AI build a story either before or after they do. This can show them how AI might or might not get the gist of what is important in a story.

HOW DO YOU GET THIS STUFF:

In normal times, I’d just post it here, but between AI and overly industrious students, I’m a little leery of just leaving a pile of stuff on the open web. So, to give you the goodies while protecting the pile a bit, here’s what you do:

Hit me up via the contact form on the blog, which is linked here. Just tell me your name, your school, your email address and anything else you think is important. I’ll then send you the unlock for the folders and you can go hog wild.

It’s all freebie and you can do whatever you want with it for your class. If you run into a better way to use this stuff, or have an idea you want to share, I’d appreciate it. Also, I don’t care if you’re using any of my books or not, so this isn’t an exclusive party for adopters. I just like helping people.

Have a great start to the semester. We’ll be back full time next week after Labor Day.

Vince (a.k.a. The Doctor of Paper)

 

 

Journalists: If your mother says she loves you, go check it out (and then be damned sure it’s true)

As the Russian proverb says, “Trust, but verify.”

The long-held adage of journalists saying, “If your mother says she loves you, go check it out,” needs a little more updating these days, as it seems like NOTHING is as real as it seems. Thanks in large part to corner-cutting, scam-baiting and general laziness, we’re finding a lot of cases in which it never hurts to make absolutely sure you are sure. Here are a couple examples:

 

AT THIS POINT, JUST ASK THE MAGIC 8-BALL:  A few months back, we highlighted Rob Waugh’s story about journalists being duped by AI “experts” who churned out content that ranged from generic to highly suspect. Waugh’s latest piece found that journalists who are using supposedly “legitimate” systems to connect with sources are also now at the mercy of AI spamming, all while paying for the privilege of getting screwed:

A PR agency is selling an AI tool that automatically answers pitches from journalists on services such as ResponseSource, HARO and Qwoted.

The AI tool, called Synapse (not be confused with PR pitching platform Synapse Media), “reads” questions sent for for expert comment by journalists via the services, then analyses sources such as books, podcasts and reports per query and uses AI to draft email responses.

Journalist-request services such as HARO charge a fee for connecting PR agencies with journalists. PRs can send out story pitches to journalists and also get access to requests for expert comment.

<SNIP>

The makers of Synapse, Lithuania-based PR agency Wellstone PR, boast that it has a 7-8% acceptance rate, and that used by a human “editor”, it can answer around 20 pitches per hour with one human PR person able to do the work of five.T

The company brags in its pitch to potential clients that it will provide them with fictional content that sounds so much like the real thing, journalists won’t know the difference. I don’t know if it bothers me more that a) it would appear journalists are getting inept/lazy enough not to notice that they’re being fed total bullpucky or b) that the PR professionals are writing such average, generic stuff so often that journalists can’t distinguish it from whatever garbage an AI can produce.

The cost for this service is a one-time fee of $2,500. The only saving grace is that they apparently haven’t sold this to anyone. Yet.

The PR experts quoted in Waugh’s piece are clearly not thrilled by this breach of trust.

Andy Smith, founder of Sourcee, which aims to offer credible, video-checked experts, says that using AI tools in this way erodes trust.

Smith said: “When journalists post a journo request, there’s an implicit level of trust in the person replying. They’re hoping to hear from real people with genuine insights, experiences, and expertise that can bring their story to life.

“They certainly don’t want to receive an automated, AI-generated reply… if that’s what they were after, they could’ve just used ChatGPT themselves.

One thing that has me rethinking my “stop using these stupid “OK-Cupid-For-Quotes” sites” was a point that Smith made about how a good expert pool, like the one he says he’s built, is meant to broaden the reach of journalists. That can prevent them from only reaching out to familiar contacts and ending up with the “usual suspects” in every story. Still, if I had to pick between usual humans and a random lottery of AI word salad, I’ll stick with my boring peeps, thanks.

 

WSJ PLUS AI EQUALS WTF: If Cliff Behnke isn’t spinning in his grave over this situation, it’s only because he’s actively crawling out of it to come smack the shit out of somebody right now:

A story about development plans for a vacant downtown block that appeared on the front page of the Sunday, July 13, issue of the Wisconsin State Journal was removed Wednesday from the Madison daily newspaper’s website before being replaced by a “re-reported” story Thursday afternoon.

An editor’s note on the re-reported story states that the original “contained incorrect information and quotes that were created by an unauthorized use of AI, which does not adhere to the Wisconsin State Journal’s editorial or ethical standards.”

The story topic itself, both in what I can find of the original and the reboot, is a simple, boring tick-tock story about a development project, in which the material for the proposals are all easily accessible. This wasn’t like the reporter needed whatever the hell Tom Cruise is using in the latest “Mission Impossible” movie to create a miracle out of thin air.

It’s not quite clear what’s more terrifying: That a reporter decided to cut a corner on something this vanilla and didn’t bother to make sure on at least a few basic facts or that the editorial process didn’t catch something that was so wrong:

One section about “The Grove,” a proposal from Neutral, a Madison real estate development firm, outlined plans for a “food hall prioritizing minority-owned vendors” and a “community advisory board” that would shape the development’s public life. Neither of those features, nor the name “The Grove,” appear in Neutral’s proposal linked from a city press release listing the firms that responded to its RFP.

“It’s all wrong,” says Daniel Glaessl, Neutral’s chief product officer. No reporter had contacted the firm about the project before Isthmus reached out on Thursday afternoon, he says.

The Synapse people in the story above are like, “Hey, AI will write all your stuff, but don’t worry! The editor will be there to ‘create enough friction’ to prevent anything terrible from getting into the public sphere.” I’m having even bigger doubts about that concept now, especially since I know the folks involved at the WSJ and I have always respected and admired them. It always hurts a little more when it happens where you live.

And finally…

FOUL BALLS: It’s not a stretch to say that the sports memorabilia world is a multi-billion-dollar industry, in which athletes get paid exorbitant amounts of money for scrawling their names across all manner of items. What makes an athlete’s autograph worth the big bucks is a confluence of the awesomeness of the athlete and the rarity of their willingness to sign items. The more people want an athlete’s signature and the fewer of them exist, the more likely there will be fraud involved at some level.

In the 1990s, the FBI dug into the world of fraudulent autographs with “Operation Bullpen,” a multi-year investigation that took down a series of forgers who made a living faking the signatures of Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Mark McGwire and others. In response, the major sports leagues and the preeminent autograph certification houses began using holograms, certificates, registration numbers and QR codes to assure buyers that the autographs they owned were, in fact, real.

It didn’t work as well as they had hoped:

Brett Lemieux, a 45-year-old resident of Westfield, Indiana, was the founder of sports memorabilia site Mister ManCave, which claimed to have sold millions of counterfeit items with net profits exceeding $350 million, and had “the largest framed jersey inventory on the web.”

Lemieux made the claims in a now-deleted Facebook post on the “Autographs 101” group Wednesday, saying the money was “too good” to pass up and that he wanted to stop the fraud, which had been going on for the better part of two decades.

Part of Lemieux’s post, bragging about his fraudulent creation of autographs and the holograms of multiple companies meant to prevent such fraud.

Over the past week, I’ve seen a ton of people submitting their Shohei Otani, Mike Trout, Derek Jeter and other autographs to online authentication groups, only to find that the balls, bats and photos are fakes. Many of these items have one, if  not more, authentic-looking holograms, to boot.

I know this seems far afield for journalists, but it really emphasizes an important point about how and why fraud persists in our space as much as it does everywhere else: If there’s money to be made in an easy way, people without scruples are going to take advantage of the situation.

That means we have to all be extra cautious about what we are willing to accept at face value and what we are willing to walk away from if the situation doesn’t feel right. It’s especially true when we really want something to work out, like getting that crucial source or making that tight deadline.

I’ve often said that paranoia is my best friend. Feel free to make it yours as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ask a generic question, get a generic answer: The perils and promise of letting ChatGPT build your interview questions

Believe it or not, we actually used to sell beer like this. Try not to let AI make your interview questions as generic as this marketing approach.

As I noted in previous posts, I wasn’t significantly worried about ChatGPT or other AI programs taking over journalism at this point. The writing wasn’t clean, the material we cover is too specific and the nuances of the language tended to create more problems than solutions.

That changed a bit when a former student told me people in her orbit were using ChatGPT to create interview questions for everything from press releases to profiles. My concerns ranged from students becoming lazy to ChatGPT asking some pretty offensive questions that ill-prepared or inexperienced writers would use to their own detriment.

To see what would happen, I relied on a situation a friend found herself in last week while teaching at Missouri Boys and Girls State. One of the guest speakers was Barbara P. Bush, daughter of former President George W. Bush and granddaughter of former President George H. W. Bush. She has also been a significant figure as an author and global health care activist.

My friend noted that one of her students had an exceptionally good interview moment with Barbara P. Bush, which we’ll get to in a moment. Before that happens, I decided to let ChatGPT take the wheel and build me a set of interview questions for the former First Daughter:

Here are five thoughtful and engaging questions an interviewer could ask Barbara Pierce Bush, daughter of former President George W. Bush:

  1. Your work with Global Health Corps has been widely recognized—what inspired you to focus on global health, and how has that mission evolved over the years?
    (This connects her personal passion to her professional work.)

  2. Growing up in one of America’s most prominent political families, how did you navigate forming your own identity outside of politics?
    (This explores the personal challenge of living in the public eye.)

  3. You and your twin sister Jenna have often shared stories of your childhood—how has your bond influenced your adult life and careers?
    (This taps into her well-known relationship with her sister and could elicit warm, relatable stories.)

  4. What lessons did you learn from your mother, Laura Bush, that have shaped how you approach leadership and service?
    (This allows reflection on legacy and values from a female role model.)

  5. In today’s divisive political climate, how do you think members of prominent political families can help encourage civility and understanding?
    (This invites her to speak thoughtfully about public discourse without diving into partisanship.)

It’s a solid list, but here are a couple key problems I noticed:

  1. Bush has been asked and has answered most of these questions at length before. This means she probably has a pretty standard answer for them, so you’re not getting anything new.
  2. Not one of them directly attaches itself to the idea of your dad being the “most powerful man in the world.” (I always believed my dad to be the “most powerful man in the world” back when I was a kid, as I’m sure a lot of kids my age did back in the day. That said, my dad didn’t have Seal Team 6 or the 82nd Airborne to deploy when my room got too messy for him to tolerate.)

The question my friend’s student asked perfectly dealt with those two problems:

“How did your dad change after Sept. 11?”

Bush teared up immediately, not expecting a question like that, nor one phrased exactly that way. She gave a great answer about how he changed but he would always be her dad. She also thanked the student for asking that question and really tapping into something different.

Even in that scenario, it’s hard to pick on ChatGPT’s effort. These are good questions, and the bot does a good job of rationalizing what each question should provide the interviewer. I could clearly imagine being flustered if I were to interview someone famous like a former First Daughter, who has carved out an impressive career of her own. ChatGPT’s questions would put me on some better ground than, “So what’s it like to be a twin?” or “Was it weird having your high school dates pick you up at the governor’s mansion?”

That said, ChatGPT struggles a bit more when it comes to people who aren’t internationally famous. I picked a Facebook friend at random and tried the same thing, ending up with one of my favorite high school teachers, Greg Frederick, as the guinea pig for this situation (Sorry in advance, Mr. Frederick…):

Here are five thoughtful and respectful questions an interviewer could ask Greg Frederick, former teacher at Pius XI High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin:

  1. What initially inspired you to pursue a career in education, and what led you to Pius XI High School specifically?

  2. How did your teaching philosophy evolve during your time at Pius XI, and what impact did that have on your students?

  3. Can you share a memorable moment or experience from your teaching career that still resonates with you today?

  4. How did you approach balancing academic rigor with the values and mission of a Catholic high school like Pius XI?

  5. What advice would you give to new educators entering the profession, especially those teaching in faith-based schools?

A couple of these are solid “opener” questions that could get the ball rolling for a decent interview. Why you wanted to be a teacher and why you ended up teaching at Pius for as long as you did could establish report. The third question is always a good one, in allowing the person to open up about something important and not forcing the interview subject to feel pigeonholed.

A couple of these feel problematic: The second question is a bit iffy in that we assume he changed over time (not always a guarantee) and that it impacted his students (again, not a guarantee). The fourth question could be taken poorly, as someone might read it as the values and mission of the faith are at odds with educational rigor.

The bigger thing, again, is that they’re generic. These could be asked of any biped who spent an appreciable length of time teaching any subject at any religious-based high school. In short, there’s less out there on Mr. Frederick because he’s not a president, a pope or a Kardashian.

I don’t know him as well as a lot of other people, I’m sure, in that I was a student at the school for four years during a specific time period, and I haven’t kept up with his life like a stalker in a made-for-TV movie. That said, I do know certain things that might have led to different questions:

  • He taught English at the school, including upper-level courses like honors English and a course in science fiction and fantasy literature. Sci fi seems to predict the future in a lot of ways, so I’d love to ask a question relating his work in that area with what we are seeing now (social media, phones glued to our souls etc.). I’d also like to know what thoughts he would have on how best to inspire his best writing kids to do good work these days, given AI’s rampant use in generating essays.
  • His wife was also a teacher at the school for a time, although not in the same department. A question about what it’s like working in the same place as a spouse, including benefits and drawbacks, would be interesting to me and probably a lot of people who face similar issues. I know how weird it was when Amy was working for the MU police department and I was running the crime beat for the local newspaper. I wonder how people who actually work closer than that find themselves coping with it.
  • His kids went to that school, including his son, Chris, who was in my grade. This opens up a ton of real estate for questions, particularly for me as I was also a teacher’s kid. After kindergarten, my mom and I were not at the same school ever. I’d be interested in finding out what discussions led to the Frederick kids going to school where mom and dad worked. I wonder if they’d do it the same way again, based on how it all worked out for the kids and the parents.

(SIDE NOTE: Chris and I participated in a number of musicals together, which speaks more to the desperation the directors felt in getting males into the productions than it did to our musical acumen. In preparing for one such musical, the choral director actually told both of us to just “mouth the words” during the songs as we were not only godawful at singing, but we were screwing up everyone else who could carry a tune. Good memories…)

  • I’d be interested on his take on things like homeschooling, which really beefed up its presence over the past few decades, in terms of teaching your own kids or being able to have other people teach them. I’m sure I could blather on forever here, but let’s move on…
  • It never hurts to ask the “So what are you doing now that you retired?” question, in that it opens the door to something people who learned from Mr. Frederick or taught with him probably want to know.

Again, this is just based on some basic stuff that I know that ChatGPT doesn’t. If I were to end up doing a profile on Mr. Frederick, I’d take my normal “build the donut around the hole” approach and interview his family, some people I know who taught with him, some of his students who have gone on to work in specific fields and so forth. The goal would be to figure out what kinds of questions to ask that are more on point about him specifically as opposed to Generic Catholic High School Teacher X.

This is why it’s important to use ChatGPT as a tool in your toolbox and not view it as a panacea for completing your work. If you don’t go beyond the basics that ChatGPT can offer, you will never create anything better than a basic piece.

How AI “expert sources” have duped journalists and four tips on how to avoid being the next victim

 

Meet Elizabeth Hubbell, a 25-year-old skin-care expert who is willing to be a great source for your next story on anything makeup or skin-care related. She’s actually completely fabricated. Her picture came from an AI generation site and her name is a combination of my car (Betsy) and a baseball player whose card I had laying around (Carl Hubbell). Careful. It’s dangerous out there…

When it comes to doing interviews, I always tell students they need to do them in person.  In response, they often look at me like I’m asking them to use a teletype machine or some semaphore flags. It’s easier, faster and more convenient for both parties if they can do a text, a chat or an email interview, the students say.

I argue that the face-to-face interview allows for a deeper connection for profile and feature pieces. This approach also can prevent sources in news stories from weaseling out of answers they could otherwise work through via several drafts of an email. Plus, if I spend some time in the source’s environment, I can probably find a personal effect that could give us something to talk about, like a family photo, a kid’s drawing or a sports item. At the very least, it’ll help with scene setting.

Apparently, there’s another good reason for my approach these days: Your easy-to-access, extremely helpful, expert source might be AI:

Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, anyone can generate comment, on any subject, in an instant.

It is a technology that appears to have fuelled a rise in expert commentators who have appeared widely in national newspapers but who are either not real, not what they seem to be or at the very least have CVs which do not justify their wide exposure in major newsbrands.

The rise in dubious commentators has been fuelled by companies that charge the PR industry in order to share quotes via email with journalists who have submitted requests for comment.

Journalist Rob Waugh found that in a number of cases, digital outlets were mass-generating content from these supposed experts, giving everyone from news journalists to PR practitioners the exact the quote or information they needed on a wide array of topics. However, when challenged to engage more deeply regarding who they are or what they have done in life, the “sources” suddenly had difficulty:

She has been quoted in Fortune talking about “loud budgeting” and by Business.com talking about the best countries in which to obtain a business education (both sites are based in the US).

A profile on Academized describes her as a “biochemist and science educator”. The same byline picture also crops up on a publisher called Leaddev, for someone called Sara Sparrow. Rebecca Leigh has written for DrBicuspid.com about how to write a business plan for your dental practice where she is described as a writer for Management Essay and Lija Help (two online writing services).

When challenged via email to do something that would be difficult to do with AI image-generating software (send an image of herself with her hand in front of her face) or prove that she was an environment expert, Rebecca stopped communicating.

One AI source, “Barbara Santini,” was particularly prolific in the volume and array of topics she could cover for journalists. Waugh found this roster of publications that had included Santini quotes:

She has been quoted in The Guardian talking about the benefits of walking (paid content), in Newsweek talking about white lies, Marie Claire talking about the meaning of money, the Daily Mirror talking about the benefits of sleeping with your dog, in The Sun talking about sexual positions, Pop Sugar talking about astrology, and Mail Online talking about how often to change your pillow.

Santini was recently quoted in a BBC article examining the lifelike responses of AI to Rorschach tests used by some psychologists saying: “If an AI’s response resembles a human’s, it’s not because it sees the same thing but it’s because its training data mirrors our collective visual culture.”

Despite her ability to be all knowing and wise, Santini apparently couldn’t receive phone calls, a relatively easy giveaway that the “person” on the other end is AI. Waugh also found other examples of journalists who were getting taken for a ride by an AI source, including one case where the non-human pitched a sob story about breast cancer survival:

“Seeing my scarred chest in the mirror was a constant reminder of what I had lost,” Kimberly Shaw, 30, told me in an emotional email.

She had contacted me through Help a Reporter Out, a service used by journalists to find sources. I cover skincare and had been using the site to find people for a story about concealing acne scars with tattoos.

<SNIP>

Shaw’s experience may not have been relevant to my acne story, but it tapped into the same feelings of empowerment and control I wanted to explore. Thinking she could inspire a powerful new piece, I emailed her back.

But after days of back-and-forth conversations, something in Shaw’s emails began to feel a little off. After idly wondering to my boyfriend whether she could be a fake, he suggested that I run the emails through a text checker for artificial intelligence.

The result was unequivocal: Shaw’s emails had been machine-generated. I’d been interviewing an AI the entire time.

As a result of Waugh’s story, a number of these information clearinghouses have tried to cull their ranks of AI “experts” while the deceived publications have retooled or removed the stories with fake people in them. Although the founder of one of these “expert mills” blamed much of the situation on “lazy journalists,” he kind of gave up the game a bit when it came to explaining why these platforms don’t prevent the frauds from gaining access in the first place:

Darryl Willcox, who founded ResponseSource in 1997 and sold it in 2018, says that the simplicity and speed of platforms like ResponseSource is key to their appeal and that attempts to add authentication risk slowing down the system.

Willcox said: “The other factor which complicates things a little bit is that these platforms are quite an open system. Once a journalist makes a request they can be forwarded around organisations, and sometimes between them, and often PR agencies are acting for multiple parties, and they will be forwarded onto their many clients.”

In other words, “If we slowed down to make sure things were accurate, we wouldn’t be as appealing as we want to be.” Eeesh.

So what can you to to avoid quoting a fake person? The overarching theme is basically, “Don’t be a lazy journalist,” but here are a few more specific tips:

TRUST, BUT VERIFY: The old Russian proverb really comes into play here and for good reason. I often say that paranoia is my best friend and has kept me out of a ton of problems. To that larger point, not only did I click on every link I could find in Waugh’s story, I also Googled the hell out of Waugh himself. Why? I imagined that it would be the most epic “Punk’d” moment on Earth if the media world was flocking to this story about AI screwing with journalists, only to find out that Rob Waugh was also an AI fake. I found LinkedIn, X, Bluesky, media staff pages and at least a dozen photos. I wouldn’t bet the house on the fact he’s real, but I’d probably bet the lawn tractor.

This can be harder in situations like the one involving the cancer scammer, as regular people tend not to have as big of a social media presence or digital footprint. That said, even regular people under the age of retirement should have left a few breadcrumbs out there for you to find.

KICK THE TIRES: If you can’t find the person clearly through a digital search, feel free to play a little game of 20 Questions to see if you can get some things ironed out. Experts who have kicked the tires on a few bots can offer you specific ways to ask questions that will tend to ferret out fakers. The author in the cancer-scam story revealed that asking for specific photos based on prior conversations can be helpful as well.

I learned about this kind of thing in trying to defeat scams when it came to buying sports memorabilia. When unknown sellers offered either exactly what I wanted when I couldn’t find it anywhere else or provided me with a ridiculously low price for something I knew should cost more, the pros who had been around the block a few times suggested I ask the seller to “coin the image.”

What this meant was that I wanted the person to take a picture of the item with a coin (usually asking for either heads or tails, or maybe even a specific coin) so I could tell they had the item and weren’t messing with me. Turned out, that advice helped me dodge a bullet or two. As weird as it might seem, asking someone to take a picture with their left hand raised or holding a quarter with “heads” showing might help you avoid a problem.

MEET IN PERSON: Again, this is the most obvious one to suggest. If you meet a person, in person, it’s a pretty safe bet that you can consider them real. The rest of the stuff (Are they the expert they claim to be? Did they really do what they say they did? Do they actually have cancer?) remains a risk without substantial additional reporting, but at least you’ll know they exist.

If that can’t happen for legitimate reasons (the person lives too far away etc.), look for other ways to get some human connection with the source. That could be a Zoom/Teams/Whatever video chat or an actual phone call at an actual phone number. In the cases where the frauds proliferated, it was pretty clear that the only connection between the source and the journalist was through a keyboard. That’s especially dangerous when you don’t have a prior relationship with a source.

WHEN IN DOUBT, DO WITHOUT: At the end of the day, there is no journalistic rule that says you have to use a source, a quote or a “fact” just because you have it. If you don’t feel comfortable with how a source is providing you with information or you aren’t 100% sure this person is a person, it’s better to leave that source out of your story than it is to run the risk of getting bamboozled.

If you say, “Well, the whole story will fall apart without this one source and I can’t get anyone else to provide me with this information,” maybe that’s more revealing than anything else we’ve said here.

 

A Lot at Steak: How U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s AI Blunder Led to Marketing Gold

THE LEAD: Secretary of Education Linda McMahon managed to confuse AI (artificial intelligence) with A.1. (steak sauce) while delivering her comments at the ASU+GSV Summit last week.

The gaffe became fodder for all sorts of internet humor, but company responsible for making the condiment saw an awesome opportunity and took full advantage of the mistake:

A.1. Sauce capitalized on McMahon’s blunder by posting an Instagram post on their verified account saying, “You heard her. Every school should have access to A.1.”

“Agree, best to start them early,” the picture attached to the post reads.

Other Instagram users loved the response from the Kraft Heinz-owned brand. One user even commented, “I will be buying a bottle or two because of this post.”

 

KRAFT-ING MARKETING GOLD AGAIN: Kraft Heinz, which markets A.1., has a decent track record of grabbing a cultural moment and running with it. The company took advantage of the “Barbenheimer” explosion by introducing a pink “Barbie-cue” sauce and has also linked a ranch dressing to Taylor Swift. In each case, the company drew attention to its brand, garnered some nice free media publicity and avoided the kinds of gaffes often associated with trying to ride a trend.

Despite the random uncertainty in the market these days, the stock closed up on Friday and has shown a gain from $27.60 on April 9 to $29.33 on Friday. Although that time frame corresponds with the comments McMahon made about A.1., it’s a bit simplistic to say the gains were solely connected to that mistake.

In its rating of best food stocks to buy according to billionaires, Insider Monkey rated Kraft Heinz at the top of the list for a number of reasons, including global supply chain and reliance on AI (not A.1.) for keeping factories humming. Still, people are saying they’re buying a bottle or two of the steak sauce as a result of the gaffe:

So far, A.1.’s loyal fans seem to be in support of its “new sauce.”

“My husband wants a bottle for his desk,” one commenter wrote under the brand’s post. “He teaches middle school, at least until they replace him with A.1.”

 

BLOG FLASHBACK: Kraft Heinz isn’t alone in taking advantage of dumb situation with some marketing genius. As we noted back in 2018, Country Time Lemonade drew a lot of attention after it created its “Legal Ade” defense fund for kids who had been fined for not having a business permit to run their lemonade stands.

Like the A.1. effort, this worked because it was on the right side of the argument, made fun of the utterly ridiculous and didn’t run a significant risk of hurting its brand with this maneuver.

Other organizations tend not to be as lucky when they jumped in on trending hashtags or didn’t think about potential blow back before entering the larger discussion.

DISCUSSION TIME: What do you think Kraft Heinz should do next? Ride the wave? Leave it alone? Try something else? Also, what other marketing maneuvers have you seen that tried to connect with a trend? Did they succeed or fail in your eyes? Why?

Time to freshen up your book shelves: Updates on “Dynamics of News Reporting and Writing,” “Exploring Mass Communication,” and “Dynamics of Media Writing” textbooks

Fresh off the press, I got my stack of the third edition of “Dynamics of News Reporting and Writing.” Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I’d be lucky enough to get this far.

(NOTE: I’m still on break for a bit, but I needed to break the seal on the blog because a) some of you are already back at the classroom grind and b) I promised Sage I’d let people know what’s up with the textbooks I’m doing. I’ll probably pick up again after a week or so, or whenever the pinball machine I’m working on really ticks me off… — VFF)

THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS NECESSARY: I got home last night to find a heavy box on the porch from Sage. Inside were my author copies of the third edition of “Dynamics of News Reporting and Writing,” which pressed over the holiday break.

I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you out there for, as Yogi Berra once put it, making this edition necessary. Somewhere along the way, you all made a choice to give me and this book a chance, and for that, I’ll be forever grateful. I know it’s not easy changing books for a class, adopting a new textbook or assigning any textbook in today’s “Textbooks are the overpriced devil, man…” world.

My goal in every textbook is to practice what I preach: Focus on audience-centricity. I want you and your students to get a ton out of these books and I want to make sure I never lose sight of who is out there and what you want/need out of me.

(The second goal is to adhere to my Polish-Catholic roots of feeding you as much as humanly possible. Whether it’s pierogi or information, we’re going to stuff you to the gills. Thus, the book updates and the blog: If you need ANYTHING I didn’t cover, tell me and it’s going up on the blog.)

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT THIS EDITION: Well, for starters, the cover is wicked cool… OK, maybe I’m the only one who cares about that. Let’s look into this a bit:

  • Artificial intelligence: This is the 800-pound gorilla in the room these days when it comes to anything having to do with content creation. Chapter 2 has been completely revamped to deal with how best to think about AI, what it’s good for in terms of media and why we aren’t ready to let RoboCop 2 take the keyboards out of our hands. In addition, more on AI and critically thinking about it are infused in the remainder of the chapters. We do more than a broad overview, instead focusing on how the tools can benefit you in the field and what you need to watch out for.
  • Audience Centricity: Not only has Chapter 1 gotten a refresh, but the rest of the book has gotten some additional elements that will help you figure out how best to use media tools to reach your audience, whatever that audience may be. Now, more than ever, we see shifts in what social media platforms can do, how news outlets provide content and who pays attention to our work. To make sure we’re all doing the best we can, we need to know who we’re trying to serve, what they want from us and how they prefer to receive it. Chapter 1 gives you the goods on the first part of that sentence, while the remaining chapters focus on the latter two parts.
  • Thoughts from a Pro: We have some of our tried-and-true pros back to offer their thoughts on what you need to know and why you need it, as well as some fresh faces with some new ideas. In addition, each pro gives us a few thoughts they have on AI as it relates to their work and the field as a whole. That should be helpful in demonstrating how significant (or maybe insignificant) AI is in various parts of the field, along with suggestions from professionals as to how best to use it.
  • Legal Wranglings: The law has been changing quite a bit (and apparently will continue to change in the upcoming few years), so keeping media operations on the right side of the law continues to be an ongoing challenge. With fresh examples and updates to legal outcomes, we give you a look at where things tend to stand in regard to reporting and writing as of this publication. (And I’m sure by the time I’m done writing this post, TikTok will be dead, brought back, challenged again and killed again like Jason Voorhees, so that’s why we have the blog…)
  • More goodies: As always, Sage is a treasure trove of add-ons and extra stuff for every book I do. The folks there have tons of lecture stuff, PowerPoints, test banks, exercises and more at the ready beyond what I’ve put into the book and the blog.

If you are interested in getting access to the new edition (digital, print or otherwise), along with all the extra stuff Sage has added, feel free to hit me up through the contact page or go directly to Staci Wittek at: staci.wittek@sagepub.com

She is truly the best person I’ve ever worked with in terms of sales and marketing and generally being awesome at book stuff.

But wait, there’s more…

TIME TO GET (MEDIA) LIT(ERATE): Back in August, “Exploring Mass Communication” hit the market, once again proving I either have too much time on my hands or I’m too stupid to say no to a project. In any case, this intro-level textbook turned into what I would like to say is the best book I’ve done to date.

I get the best mail from Sage…

This book is GREAT for any introduction to mass media/mass com class, but it’s even BETTER if you’re trying to teach media literacy to a nation of freshmen and sophomores. I didn’t realize that until someone told me, “Hey, why did you tell me you wrote a media-literacy text?” Turns out, it’s become popular in all sorts of classes for a number of reasons:

  • It’s cheaper than the other leading brand:  In going through 128 reviews Sage sent me, I realized that the only thing all 128 reviewers agreed on was that price was a factor. I asked Sage if I could just write whatever I wanted if we re-titled the book: “Filak’s Five Dollar Book of Mass Com Stuff.” The answer was a hard “no,” but we did get the print edition to come in below other books like it. Even BETTER, the rental costs for digital copies are less than one-third of the cost of the print edition (especially if you go through Sage reps) and then there’s an even BETTER version of this….
  • The Vantage Advantage: “Nobody reads textbooks,” is what I keep hearing from instructors, who are actually desperate to get students to read the stuff in the book. Sage has built an entire digital system called Vantage that can plug into your Learning Management System (BlackBoard, Canvas, D2L or whatever people are calling it) so you can assign kids stuff digitally, track their efforts and generally oversee the class like the guy in “Sliver.” In addition, you can toggle how you want to spot-check the kids on their reading. There are quiz questions attached to various sections of the readings and other analytics that help you help them to learn. Even better? It’s cheaper than a print book. By a lot.
  • The “Crazy Vinnie Guarantee” is Still in Effect: If you missed it when the book launched, here’s a look back at the insane things I’ll do  to help you either make the book work for you or to get you set up to use someone else’s book. Seriously. I’ll make someone else’s book better if you want.

If you’re interested in giving this book a look, feel free to hit me up through the contact page or go directly to Staci Wittek at: staci.wittek@sagepub.com

And one last item…

MEDIA WRITING UPDATE: Just before my former editor Terri left Sage, she told me that if my books worked out as well as she knew they would, I’d be writing a book a year for her for the rest of my life. If she’s as prescient about everything as she was in making that statement, I’d like to follow her around at an off-track-betting parlor some day…

This leads us to the upcoming edition of “Dynamics of Media Writing.” The “OG” book in the “Dynamics” series is in process as we speak. The goal is to have it to a copy editor by February, proofs done by April and out the door by August of this year. As is the case with the Reporting book, there will be AI additions, new pros and a ton of extra stuff. I’ll keep you posted as we go.

Thanks again for all of this. Without you all, these books would be dead after one edition and serving as a coffee coaster in the grad-student lounge.

Vince (a.k.a. The Doctor of Paper)

Dodging Deep Fakes and Facts, Fake News and Helping Your Students Navigate the Media Landscape

I get to work with the best people in the world. The stuff we do with Sage is so cool. They also don’t mind using a really old head shot where I look like I have a relatively decent head of hair. Also, don’t click here. It’s a screenshot. The link is below…

Today’s post is one of those long-time-coming situations in which I was working with the folks at Sage to talk about the issues pertaining to misinformation, AI deepfakes and other such things that we all thought would benefit students. When the chance to do a podcast on the topic came up, I leaped at the chance.

The conversation between Tim Molina and me was an amazingly fun and informative time for both of us. Tim is one of the Sage faculty partners and an assistant professor of mass communication at Northwest Vista College in San Antonio. He is also the faculty advisor for the NVC Student Podcast, WILDCAST.

We did this prior to the election, so some of the stuff might be a tad dated, but we finally got the OK to finish production and put it out. (Special thanks to Vicky Velasquez and Amy Slowik at Sage for getting this arranged, recorded and published.)

If you’ve got 44 minutes and 13 seconds to kill, click this link and enjoy!

 

 

 

An 8-minute video primer on Artificial Intelligence, its impact on media writers and the ethical concerns it raises for media folks

One of the biggest things I’ve tried to get across on this blog is that it’s here to help media students and professors. (If it helps other people, hey, I’m glad that works out as well…) The other big thing I’ve tried to get across is that if you need something, all you have to do is ask and I’ll probably get it done.

Case in point, a professor down in Texas and I were chatting about the “Exploring Mass Communication” textbook we’d sent her and some other issues, when she emailed me this:

I do have a question for you: Do you have any recorded lectures or videos where you talk about AI in journalism? I would love to take a look and see if I can incorporate it into my class. My current class size is 220, and the classroom is not very adaptable to an interactive Zoom call, which is why I wanted to see if I could use a pre-recorded video. I also teach an online version of this class which is just as large, and the video would be very helpful.

I reached out to Sage and asked if we could do a more “production-savvy” video than just me recording this in the pinball man cave at my house, and they were totally enthusiastic. We got it done for her with two weeks to spare and it worked well.

The nicest thing is that Sage sent me a copy, so I uploaded it to YouTube and here it is if you want to use it:

 

(I hate the fact I keep looking down, but this is what happens when your script glitches on the screen and you have to use the printed backup…)

If it’s helpful, let me know. Also, if YOU want something for any of your classes that fit into whatever area of expertise I supposedly have, feel free to hit me up here. I don’t care if you’re using my books or not. I just like helping people.

Have a great rest of your day!

What happens when police use AI to draft their incident reports?

(We’re not quite here yet, but it’s a little disconcerting how I keep finding parallels between RoboCop and reality. Also, that Kurtwood Smith was somehow less threatening here than in “That ’70s Show.”)

THE LEAD: Some police organizations are experimenting with AI, in which ChatBots are writing the first drafts of their situation reports based on what the officers’ body cameras capture.

“They become police officers because they want to do police work, and spending half their day doing data entry is just a tedious part of the job that they hate,” said Axon’s founder and CEO Rick Smith, describing the new AI product — called Draft One — as having the “most positive reaction” of any product the company has introduced.

“Now, there’s certainly concerns,” Smith added. In particular, he said district attorneys prosecuting a criminal case want to be sure that police officers — not solely an AI chatbot — are responsible for authoring their reports because they may have to testify in court about what they witnessed.

“They never want to get an officer on the stand who says, well, ‘The AI wrote that, I didn’t,’” Smith said.

The pilot programs have found that the reports that once took 30-45 minutes to draft can be done in a matter of seconds. To kind of hedge their bets on the issue of how much they should be leaning on the technology, some departments are using the AI on misdemeanors and petty crime.

Aside from the idea that the computer might be doing the officers’ “homework” for them, legal scholars and civil-rights activists are concerned about the impact this could have on society as a whole:

“I am concerned that automation and the ease of the technology would cause police officers to be sort of less careful with their writing,” said Ferguson, a law professor at American University working on what’s expected to be the first law review article on the emerging technology.

Ferguson said a police report is important in determining whether an officer’s suspicion “justifies someone’s loss of liberty.” It’s sometimes the only testimony a judge sees, especially for misdemeanor crimes.

 

DOCTOR OF PAPER HOT TAKE: Accuracy and legality lead the list of my concerns here. At one point in the article, the officer notes that the AI included a detail he didn’t remember hearing. That could be the AI capturing something real or it could be fabricating something that the officer then kind of adopted as true.

Experts and users have found AI can engage in “hallucinations” where it presents something untrue as fact. It’s kind of funny when AI tells us that the downfall of Western Civilization began when the coach refused to put Uncle Rico in at quarterback in the ’82 finals. It’s less funny when it tells a court of law that you threatened a cop who pulled you over for speeding.

The officers interviewed for the story mention that they’ve become more verbal in their interactions with the public, which allows the body camera to capture that information and thus improve the AI report.

In this kind of case, it feels more like transcription than creation, which seems safer, but who knows. What would be beneficial for reporters in cases like this would be to get the AI-based reports and the officer’s body-cam footage to do a side-by-side comparison.

Legally speaking, I would be curious to know what levels of access journalists could have to the AI version of a report as well as the final version of a report. Police reports and court documents are public records, but some internal memos and drafts of public items can occasionally be considered off limits. In addition, it’s technically not being created by a public figure, but it’s the ramblings of a computer program. Who can have access to what, when and where and how is interesting here.

It’s also interesting to see how well these things hold up in court compared to other reports, witness testimony and so forth. As with anything new, there’s going to be a learning curve and development issues, with the older technology probably still being better.

When we first started seeing automobiles, they could barely break into double digits in terms of their mph speed. Meanwhile, horses could literally and figuratively run circles around them. As time went on, cars clearly became the faster mode of transportation, but it took a while. It’ll be interesting to see how many lawyers start asking questions like, “So, Officer Smith, did you write the initial report of this or did you rely on artificial intelligence to do it for you?” and then showing off all the stupid things AI has written to undermine AI’s credibility.

The folks in the article who distrust the AI process have noted concerns about racial targeting and other such issues in terms of bias against people traditionally mistreated by legal wrangling. We have seen AI generate some of those kinds of biased reports here, and it is a valid concern. I would probably go a step beyond this, only to say that I’d be really concerned in general for anyone who is being accused of criminal activity while the police are working the kinks out on this system. The article notes that the crimes are generally “low level” but that doesn’t make me feel much better if I’m on the other end of an AI disaster.