Microsoft has a plan to use AI to create a “healthy information ecosystem” just in time for the 2024 election.
A February 5 headline from Microsoft’s own site sends the signal: “Here’s how we’re working with journalists to create the newsrooms of the future with AI.” That’s the intended future: The marriage of Big Tech and Big Journalism, with a hybrid offspring coming soon to a screen near you.
Highlighting new “partnerships” with various publications and non-profits, Microsoft tells us, “We are helping these organizations identify and refine the procedures and policies to use AI responsibly in newsgathering and business practices,” adding that the goal is to “identify ways AI can help create efficient business practices and help build sustainable newsrooms for generations to come.”
Microsoft founder Bill Gates (Jordan Vonderhaar/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Here’s the translation from the corporate blather-speak: Microsoft, the richest company in the world, is making its move into journalism, or, more precisely, the journalism business. Journalism, for better or worse, requires journalists, those flesh-and-blood cost centers, whereas the journalism business can get by on whatever it can get away with, AI-wise.
Yet, so far, at least, AI journalism has not been a success. Most obviously, reporters realize that