Most people are skeptical of news stories created by artificial intelligence — and that includes the top media executive at OpenAI.
Varun Shetty, the head of media partnerships at OpenAI, said AI news isn’t what the public wants right now.
“No one wants to read AI-generated news,” Shetty said on Monday.
That comment came during a Monday appearance at the Twipe Digital Growth Summit in Brussels, according to the Press Gazette.
Shetty’s statement is backed up by a June survey from the Reuters Institute and the University of Oxford. While saying “no one” wants AI-generated news wouldn’t be literally true, the survey found a strong majority of people aren’t fans of it.
“Our survey data show that, across all countries, only a minority currently feels comfortable using news made by humans with the help of AI (36%),” said Dr. Amy Ross Arguedas, who wrote the survey summary. “And an even smaller proportion is comfortable using news made mostly by AI with human oversight (19%).”
Shetty, in his comments on Monday, said AI is best used as a tool to augment stories, rather than write them altogether.
“But can we make it easier for journalists to recommend stories?” Shetty continued. “To find the right photos within the CMS? To create that context box that sits along the side?”
Shetty added that ChatGPT, the company’s AI chatbot, can help newsrooms translate stories into different languages, or make text stories into audio or video posts.
Despite the survey results showing readers aren’t big fans of AI-generated news, many outlets are using the technology to some degree in their coverage, including the Associated Press, The New York Times, and Semafor, among others.
OpenAI, after raising $6.6 billion earlier this month, is valued at $157 billion.