How the FT is leading the way by hiring an AI editor

Sarah Scire of Nieman Journalism Lab interviewed Madhumita Murgia, who has been named the first artificial intelligence editor at the Financial Times.

Here is an excerpt:

SCIRE: What is your job as AI editor? Can you describe, in particular, how you’re thinking about the “global remit” you mentioned in the announcement

MURGIA: The job is to break news and dive deep into how AI technologies work, how they’ll be applied across industries, and the ripple effects on business and society. I’m particularly interested in the impact of AI technologies on our daily lives, for better and worse. It’s a unique role in that I get to report and write, but also work with colleagues to shape stories in their areas of interest. Over the past six years, I’ve collaborated with reporters from the U.S., Brussels, and Berlin, to Kenya, China, and India — it’s something I love about working at the FT.

As AI technologies are adopted more broadly, in the same way that digitization or cloud computing was, correspondents in our bureaus across the world will start to encounter it in their beats. I’ve already heard from several colleagues in beats like media or education about AI-focused stories they’re interested in. With this global remit, I’m hoping we can tie together different threads and trends, and leverage our international perspective to get a sense of how AI is evolving and being adopted at scale.

Read more here.