Gannett is introducing AI-generated summaries at the top of journalists' stories. From The Verge:

The AI feature, labeled “key points” on stories, uses automated technology to create summaries that appear below a headline. The bottom of articles includes a disclaimer, reading, “The Key Points at the top of this article were created with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and reviewed by a journalist before publication. No other parts of the article were generated using AI.” The memo is dated May 14th and notes that participation is optional at this point.

The report says the summaries are already in use, such as on this USA Today story about mosquitoes. It looks like this:

Thin end of the wedge? Maybe — but I think tentative uses like this can be useful for journalists who have completed the (hard, human-powered) reporting and are now just doing page decorations which, let’s face it, are as much about attracting Google as anything else.

But this additional passage in The Verge’s reporting gives me pause:

The AI-generated summary “aims to enhance the reporting process and elevate the audience experience,” according to the memo, which also states that the AI model that powers the tool was trained in-house over nine months.

“The document speaks for itself,” Gannett spokesperson Lark-Marie Anton said in an email.

If newspaper groups are going to do this, they need to be as transparent as their readers as possible. At the bare minimum: A full editorial, explaining the technology, the rationale for using it, and how they plan to monitor quality. Readers finding out via leaked memo? Not appropriate.

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