Google wants to use AI to write news, just because it is annoyed by overseas media

Original Source: Sanyi Life

Image source: Generated by Unbounded AI‌

Since ChatGPT became popular, websites that try to use AI instead of human editors to generate content can be said to be like crucian carp in the river, but the results of these attempts do not seem to be very good. Now it's Google's turn to end. Recently, the "New York Times" quoted relevant sources as revealing that Google is testing a product that uses AI technology to produce news reports, and has demonstrated it to some industry executives.

It is reported that Google's AI news tool is internally code-named "Genesis", which can receive current affairs information and automatically generate manuscripts. For this AI tool, it is said that Google has placed high hopes on it, and believes that it can be used as a personal assistant for reporters and editors to complete some auxiliary tasks, freeing the former from mechanical work. In addition, Google also believes that the tool is responsible and can help relevant practitioners "stay away from the AI trap."

In fact, before Google, the trend of using generative artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT to create content has already appeared, and even many websites have already begun to use AI to generate content. Just at the end of last month, NewsGuard, a rating tool for overseas news websites, released their tracking of AI writing, which showed that as of June this year, the agency alone had tracked 217 websites that used AI to generate spam.

Two of the most typical examples are that the American technology website cnet has been experimenting with using AI to create content since November last year, and quietly launched more than 70 related reports generated by AI. A few months ago, Gamurs, a well-known game media group in Australia, released relevant recruitment, hoping to introduce several AI editors called "artificial intelligence content and SEO strategists".

But it is a pity that so far, all websites using AI for content creation have failed without exception. The relevant media in the United States even described this behavior as a "news disaster".

In fact, purely from a technical point of view, it is not difficult to collect the entire network information through crawlers and then process it, but the final product generally has certain quality problems. For example, the content is bland, lacks emotion, and a lot of repetitive content. These are the evaluations given by netizens who have seen AI-generated related content.

In fact, as long as you have used ChatGPT, GPT-4, Wenxinyiyan, and even Bard's friends may have discovered that there are still obvious differences between the content generated by AI and the content created by humans at this stage.

That being the case, why is Google still doing "Genesis"? Because such AI tools are very likely to become a weight used by Google to fight against the overseas publishing industry. In fact, "the Internet has destroyed the journalism industry" is a topic that has been widely discussed since the outbreak, and in order to protect the interests of local news organizations, from Canada to Australia to the European Union, they have also pointed their finger at Internet giants such as Google and Meta.

Previously, in the autumn of 2020, Google, Meta and relevant Australian regulators had a full-scale confrontation. The reason was that the latter required these Internet giants to pay for news. After resorting to countermeasures such as blocking content produced by Australian media on Facebook, Google Search intending to require Australian users to pay for use, and after lengthy negotiations, the two sides "truce" on the issue of news payment.

Immediately afterwards, in the spring of 2021, some mainstream media in Canada even used the front page "opening the skylight" to protest that Internet giants such as Google obtained content from them, and then sold digital advertisements to make profits, but did not share the proceeds with them. Even this trend finally evolved into a confrontation between Google and some national regulators a few days ago.

Just a few days ago, Canada officially approved the "Online News Act", requiring online platforms to pay local media for the use of news content. To this end, Google and Meta currently choose to block content provided by relevant media on their platforms.

In fact, the difference between the two lies in the "unequal distribution of spoils". Among them, Internet giants such as Google believe that they extended a helping hand when the news publishing industry transformed from traditional print media to digital media, and used powerful search engines and social platforms to attract traffic to the media's website, helping the content produced by the latter to be seen by more people, allowing the latter to pass the paywall, and allowing the ancient industry of news publishing to survive in the information age.

In fact, in the first decade of this century, the Internet giants and the news media were satisfied with the cooperation between the two parties. After all, the news media used the power of the Internet to overcome the crisis of survival, allowing newspapers and magazines to be pushed back to readers in the form of electronic versions. But as the media gradually adapted to the Internet era, they discovered that the Internet giants had made such amazing profits with their own content, so they began to ask for a bigger pie.

This is where the problem arises. After all, no company will voluntarily give up the cake they get for no reason. Therefore, Google and Meta, which have always attached importance to compliance and law-abiding, will not hesitate to use non-violent non-cooperation attitudes to fight against relevant regulations in Australia and Canada.

However, Google and Meta’s practice of blocking relevant content is undoubtedly hurting one thousand enemies and self-defeating eight hundred. After all, users need content for consumption. Once they can’t find it on Google, they may turn to Bing.

Therefore, Google’s approach to Genesis is to try to get rid of its dependence on media-produced content and try to create content through AI. After all, it would be uncool to simply build a team similar to Tencent News and Netease News. Using AI to write news not only satisfies its own needs for content, but also demonstrates the technology to the outside world, which can be called a win-win situation.