Washington Post tech reporter Harwell on using AI

Washington Post tech reporter Drew Harwell spoke with MediaWise director Alex Mahadevan at Poynter’s annual meeting with its advisory board late February about artificial intelligence.

Angela Fu of Poynter writes, “Though Harwell sometimes experiments with AI tools, he doesn’t incorporate them into his reporting and writing process. AI can’t replicate good journalism, he said. It can’t knock on doors, and the content generative AI tools produce tends toward boilerplate.

“‘I think the more we’ll be seeing AI-generated stuff, the more we will appreciate real, human, creative work,’ Harwell said. ‘There’s nothing really replicating good, human writing.’

“Still, Harwell acknowledged that AI could help augment journalism. He highlighted the work of The New York Times’ visual investigations team, which partnered with an AI company to track and analyze a high-altitude Chinese balloon last year. At the Post, the newsroom uses machine learning to test different headlines for stories and track which headline performs the best. Other uses of AI — such as translating stories into different languages or automatically generating transcripts for podcasts — could help journalists reach more people, Harwell said.”

Read more here.