AI journalism promises a revolution in freedom of information, and a free flow of information - GulfToday

AI journalism promises a revolution in freedom of information, and a free flow of information

Dr Mohamed Abdulzaher

LinkedIn

Academic and Artificial Intelligence Journalism pioneer

Robot

The photo has been used for illustrative purposes.

How does Artificial Intelligence Journalism assure freedom of information? One of the key pillars on which Artificial Intelligence (AI) journalism is based on is the fact that the information industry is run in a more democratic and free manner from all sides: the sender side, the receiver side and the feedback side.

From the content sender side (media organisation, people or even government institutions and private companies):

Their sources of information will be various, their reliance on journalism of data and numbers will increase, which will grow day by day to reach hundreds of thousands zettabyte each month, and it will rely entirely on Big and Open Data from various sources and the most unconditionally spread.

Sender’s skills and the diversity of his ability will be heightened to access the content and information, which will multiply thousands of times from now, where there won’t be restrictions between countries, nor laws governing the circulation of this information, coming directly from their main sources.

For example: media establishment will have an army of robots that will analyse all details and data and an army of journalists who are capable of directing these machines to the right places at the right time, and obtaining big data and information from several sources, to produce media messages that are more accurate and faster in reaching the receiver.

In Artificial Intelligence journalism, “the sender doesn’t make only a message, but also creates new tools that contribute in creating content automatically, and all of this depends on the techniques of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

From the receiver side, it will be more complicated. The receiver here is not just a human or diverse audience, but other tools, computers, robots, satellites and smart devices in homes and offices. All of them have the same characteristics as the usual receiver, from receiving and analysing the message. And may be smarter than the usual audience in the speed of analysis and in sending reactions, but also in converting messages received to a message sent back which is richer in diversity and content.

For example, the presence of the robot as a news analyst at home or establishment (we can assume that it works in the insurance sector), where the robot serves hundreds of employees and workers daily, receiving hundreds of news items, advertisement and contents from several hundred news sites or television channels, and selects the best and the suitable for the insurance sector, and publishes data based on the content it sees. It then sends these news and reports again within the establishment or to a smaller audience in a specific sector. In Artificial Intelligence journalism, the receiver doesn’t stop when he gets information.  “It’s the first task of the receiver, and then he searches, analyzes, adds, selects and finally sends it back.”

It is where the receiver has millions of daily messages, from various media and mass communication avenues, and all these messages are declared, reliable, fast-changing and fast-reaching to the target audience. With Artificial Intelligence Journalism, there’s no Wikileaks documents or intelligence information about international people or entities, everyone can access all data and information in a more free and organised ways.

From the feedback side: everyone will have the right to reply, the right to express one’s opinion, the right to discuss data and information, the right to edit, correcting, republish and broadcast  with no restrictions or conditions in feedbacks. Everyone has his own ways of creating content that rivals and precedes previously submitted content.

Artificial intelligence journalism will create an entirely new industry — “Feedback Industry “. This is an industry based on receiving, then evaluating, then modifying, then searching, then sending feedback and waiting for similar action.

For example, the receiver  — a person, or a device, or a tool connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) —can receive messages and medical advices across a company or media about a particular disease outbreak in a specific region. But it doesn’t stop on receiving the message in the traditional form, but it goes beyond that to search for the causes of the disease, its symptoms, the rate of infection in the area reached by the message, and all the details of this disease. And then the feedbacks comes to fully complete the previous messages, or correcting any errors, so the feedbacks are therefore converted into new messages that may be more recent and more interactive than the original messages.

In Artificial Intelligence Journalism, there is a guarantee of the freedom of the sender, the receiver, the tool, and the feedbacks. This creates a new revolution in freedom of information and the free flow of information, depending on techniques of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.



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