AI is Now Writing More News Than Humans?

AI is now producing more articles than humans. So that's already more than half. The 2024 report that there's more AI content on the internet than humans have. Dead internet theory. Insane. Welcome to Silicon Valley Front Row. Today we'll be talking about the quiet takeover of AI in journalism. David, that's a big one because obviously we are in journalism in one way or another. You know, this is our jobs. We do this every day. AI is taking over everything and now there's all these reports about AI getting more and more part of what the actual content of newspapers and media is. So I'll just read you a couple of quotes from this Fast Company magazine in October. So just two months ago. A report from AI analytics from Graphite revealed that AI is now producing more articles than humans. So that's already more than half. It's kind of like the report last, the 2024 report that there's more AI content on the internet than humans have. Dead internet theory. Insane. Yeah, and then to come up, they have another study from the University of Maryland that examined 1,500 newspapers and they found that AI generated copy constitutes 9%. Now, that's not as much, but maybe because they're print, maybe because a different study, maybe they don't know. Anyway, I don't know why. It's a smaller number, but it's still significant. Right, just 1,500 out of like how many digital pieces out there. So what do you know about this? What's going on? Yeah, it's a crazy number that you mentioned, right? 9%, that's basically one out of every 10 newspaper. Yeah. I think it is very insane since we're in the journalism field. You know, I know AI is very useful when doing research. It has everything quick and easy right there to find. Yeah. But when I read articles that I know is kind of generated by AI, it's a weird feeling. So- Can you tell sometimes? Sometimes you can tell, but I guess- There is sometimes if it's not polished because there's a certain format, like it's kind of too perfect and there's a format that AI uses all the time, but there are some good writers that could mask it and they change it, right? They only use a sentence or two. I just want to say that, you know, part of that Fast Company articles, you know, like one of the points mentioned was that it really changed industry because back then it would take, or even now it would take so long for a writer to come up with something original. They have to do interviews, research, piece it together and make it easy to understand. And that could take hours, even days maybe. With AI, it could be done in a few minutes. But the sources will not be accurate and the information may not be accurate, right? Right, it might not be accurate. But it seems like some companies or media outlets, small ones are growing and this could help them when they don't have enough manpower. You know, what do you think about that? Yeah, possibly, possibly. I'm sure it helps them, but I think still again, the wrong way to do it. I like original reporting, you know. So I personally chose this photo to be shown here. So that is the character of Peter Parker, played by actor Tobey Maguire in a Spider-Man movie. Okay. Yeah, so we all pretty much all know Spider-Man. Yeah. So his character, when he's not doing spidey stuff, he's a photographer and he takes photos and, you know, sells them to, I believe the newspaper company. So I just think this is kind of relevant because with being a photo journalist, taking photos, I think their career could be affected as well. Yes. You know, like with coming out to, going out in the field to create and capture photos. When a photo can be just generated by AI. A few clicks. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. To me, it's really crazy how this is gonna end up because it's getting more and more into that direction and it's gonna be hard to differentiate. And if you can't differentiate, then the question is gonna be why not use it? Why, you know, everyone is gonna be using it for images, for video, for photos, for everything. Exactly. So the better it gets, I think the scarier it gets at the same time. And I keep hearing people saying that, no, this is not about losing jobs. It's about creating more jobs. So I still don't know how that's gonna happen when obviously all this content can be AI generated, so. And going back to how media outlets are affected, local news companies seem to be affected the most. As we've seen in the past few years, right, like journalism and their staffing power has shrunk. Yes. So when I'm on different websites, there's a lot of pop-ups now asking to subscribe, put in your email or turn off, or yeah, they rely on all this because money is so tough for media companies. And of course, using AI saves a lot of money from so many ways. You don't have to pay the writers or reporters. Yeah, just a subscription. Yeah. Sometimes it's even free, actually. Yeah, that's right. So to end on a good note, I think for companies or artists that do use AI, it should be disclosed to the viewers or their audience. Just having that transparency will really make it good for people, just so they know. Yeah, at the Epoch Times, we have a very strict policy. No AI use for any kind of content, images or video. And there's always people trying to say, oh, can I use AI at least for like this image or at least for this video? But it's a very strict policy. If anyone gets caught, they're in trouble. So that's a good policy to have, but it may be hard to reinforce in other companies where, again, they can save so much money by using AI. Right. And they don't see any problems with it, like an ethical problem or a moral problem. It's pretty much like a student taking an exam and having an open book versus the guy who studies hard on his own. Right. But the only thing is the teacher is not looking, so you don't know who's doing it, because there's no teacher to monitor. Yeah, right. When no one's looking, you don't know what happens. So any comments this week? Yes, so let's read off two more comments from our beloved viewers. All right, so these two comments are about the Star Trek episode about warp drive. Mm-hmm. Okay. All right, so this is from Mick Rocket. Warp drive is totally pointless. What is the benefit in flying faster than you can see in flying blind? You could smash into space debris, comets, whatever, before you would ever see it, and flying through uncharted galaxies would be suicidal. I love Star Trek, but sadly, much of its technology is useless or impossible, like subspace signals, which the producers admitted they simply invented as a plot device with no basis in science. So Steve, since you watch more Star Trek, I'll let you comment on that. Well, it's an interesting comment. I think we appreciate it. I feel that it might not be correct in some ways. I think there's a lot of technology in Star Trek that can be very useful and probably will develop in the future. Some of it developed already. As far as going at the speed of light, of course, there's so many other issues that would happen if you actually do, but supposedly there's mechanisms, there's computers, there are devices that are able to guide someone through the different debris or planets or whatever, but it is a good point because at that speed, how do you turn so quick, right? So I don't think scientists even kind of got to the point of analyzing that problem only because we're so far away from being close to the speed of light. I've watched more Star Wars than Star Trek, but yeah, they do have, I think in Star Wars, they call it hyperdrive. So yeah, I've always wondered, like how do they not hit other things? So after I saw this comment, I looked it up and it seems like apparently when vehicles or starships go into warp drive, there's a field around them. So whatever it might collide with, it kind of deflects. Okay, that's good. Pretty interesting. That's a good answer, yes. Yeah. All right, so let's go with number two. Same episode as mentioned, this is from Kidrinfan2035. Warp drive is possible and sooner than anyone thinks, but I'm ready to get an aneurysm from modern scientists who can't seem to put things together, even from the clues that are plainly visible. And then someone responded to that, James, saying, based on what? I think the person is saying that, well, warp drive is possible, but I guess he's confused that scientists today can't get there even with what's available. As far as the physics, it might be difficult to get there depending on how far we are. But I do agree, there are some clues that are here that maybe scientists do have to seem to have to follow. Yes. And that does affect growth because they have to follow, do experiments and things like that. So kind of growing out of that sphere, it could be difficult in the current structure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, there's a lot of theories. Einstein's, of course, main theory of relativity that in order to reach the speed of light, either your mass has to become infinite or the size. There are some things that basically makes it impossible for reaching the speed of light. And I think the mass has to become zero or infinite. I don't remember. But regardless, it's not something practical. It's not something that can actually happen yet. So there have to be other ways. That's why- Right. Or like, you know, we talked about, was it a teleportation? Yeah. Like not going directly, but- Exactly. Like a shortcut. Exactly, yeah. Either through a different dimension somehow or opening some kind of portal in space that you travel through. Right. Where you go a huge distance, but not at a very high speed. You just go slow speed, but you just pass through a huge distance. Right. So that's much more possible, at least with our laws of physics, but there might be other laws of physics that we don't know about, so. Yeah, it's very vast, you know, the sci-fi theory in world. Yeah. So much to explore out there. Thank you for the comments. Yeah, thanks so much. So let's end off with some questions. The question is about AI in journalism. Would you continue to read the same newspaper article if you know it's AI generated or not? Or what would you do? Would you just dump it or you would just read it the same? Thank you for watching and we'll see you next time. Don't forget to subscribe.