Surf’s Up

By Gordon Hopkins Okay, I've done a lot of ranting about AI (artificial intelligence) and, in particular, about how I think newspapers should avoid using AI at all cost. Yes, it makes me sound like a Luddite. Yes, it make me sound like I have a terrible case of “Future Shock.” For those of you who don't feel like reading the entire book by that name by Alvin Toffler, the short definition of “Future Shock” is the feeling of “too much change in too short a period of time.” (Thank you, Wikipedia.) So, just to clarify, what I oppose is using AI to write stories. AI has the potential to be an incredibly valuable tool. Indeed, it already is an incredibly valuable tool that I use on a regular basis. I attend a lot of boring meetings in my job. I always take a recorder with me to public meetings. Actually, I take two. I learned the hard way about always having a backup. Anyway, it makes note-taking much easier and ensures my quotes are 100 percent accurate. Plus, I know I won't miss anything if I should nod off. Did I mention those meetings are usually boring? After I record a meeting, I run the recording through a transcription program that uses AI. That way, I don't have to write out the quotes I want to use. It saves me a lot of time. However, and this is a big however, I absolutely do not trust that the quotes are accurate. I always listen to the recording. Misquoting someone in a story is one of the worst things a journalist can do. Let me give you a for instance. I recently attended a Law Enforcement Committee meeting and there was the Jefferson County Sheriff giving his report. According to my transcription of the meeting, facilitated by AI, there have been a lot of arrests in the county recently. The cause of all those arrests: surfboards. As the sheriff explained it, one surfboard leads to another surfboard, which leads to another surfboard. And most surfboards result in at least one arrest. For some reason, the AI was hearing the words, “search warrant,” but transcribing them as “surfboards.”So, AI can be very useful but don't trust it. Unfortunately, AI is now showing up in places that it has no business being. AI has become like cilantro. Some folks out there want to put it in everything.

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