ARTIFICIALLY INTELLIGENT WRITING

There’s more to being a writer than just writing. Writers must be innovative, adaptable, creative, stubborn, disciplined, focused and be able to learn new things. From the first instances of writtenlanguage in Sumerian in 3200 BCE, to the invention of movable metal type in1234 CE in Korea, to Guttenberg’s invention of the printing press in 1440 (World History Encyclopedia, n.d.), writers have always been looking forward, finding ways to improve their craft, and bring their words to life. In modern times, technology has allowed even bigger leaps forward and what better way to bring words to life than by using computers and Artificial Intelligence.

Technology has already forever changed the worlds of writing and journalism. Processes that once took an army are now often completed by a single author from writing the words to pressing the “publish” button in an online article. They self-edit, proofread their own work, edit their own photos, videos and audio, and they create their own graphics. In this single-person, self-service, all-for-one type of writing environment, how cool would it be to have interactive help at your fingertips? A writing buddy to help you through writer’s block, someone (something) to collaborate with? A partner that demands no credit and no accolades? While not appropriate for journalism, per se…the potential applications of AIfor the world of fiction writing are exciting (Samuel, 2019). And I can even see how AI could come in handy for journalists, but in different ways. While possibly beneficial to create first drafts of stories or summaries of things like election results and sports or financial statistics, news organizations will be able to use AI to automate huge numbers of tasks throughout the news production cycle, including detecting, extracting and verifying data, producing stories and graphics, publishing and automatically tagging articles, and who knows what else? Even though automation threatens jobs currently performed by people in all industries, it could lead to a revitalization of journalism by taking over the repetitive and time-consuming tasks currently being done by journalists and writers and free them to focus on producing content rather than toiling away at the tedious tasks that have been added to their responsibilities in recent years (Dierickx, 2021).

 

References

Dierickx, L. (2021, Apr 06). Artificial intelligence and journalism: a race with machines. Retrieved from Equal Times: https://www.equaltimes.org/artificial-intelligence-and#.YSGEh45KiCo

Samuel, S. (2019, Aug 30). How I'm using AI to write my next novel. Retrieved from Vox: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/8/30/20840194/ai-art-fiction-writing-language-gpt-2

World History Encyclopedia. (n.d.). Writing Timeline. Retrieved from World History Encyclopedia: https://www.worldhistory.org/timeline/writing/