“Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks”
Artificial intelligence (AI), which was once a buzzword, has become an integral part of our lives. AI is shaping the future of technology and revolutionizing industries. AI – AI and AI, the most dominating key words at this point of time.
“Artificial Intelligence” These two words are gripping the attention of every industry, every professional, the leading academic institutes, in fact, no one is out of its clutch.
One of the biggest industry of our country #MediaIndustry has fallen in trap of AI. Experts believe that AI will be in the driver seat sooner and later, and, the traditional media workforce and the so called traditional media industry embedded with the old gigantic gadgets would go in oblivion.
Proving its resilience to the world, Indian M&E industry is on the cusp of a strong phase of growth, backed by rising consumer demand and improving advertising revenue. According to a FICCI-EY report, the advertising to GDP ratio is expected to reach 0.4% by 2025 from 0.38% in 2019.
Exactly AI has come up to take this opportunity and take the media industry into the next level in terms of cost cutting and using computers and machines to simulate human intelligence and problem-solving capabilities. Endless - hassle free – human free opportunities where only super intelligent humans would be utilized with computers and machines, and, the average intelligence (read humans) would be redundant – the complete ballgame.
What will happen to the innumerable numbers of journalists – read reporters, copy editors, anchors, photographers - videographers, graphic designers, copywriters, visualizers, script writers and so on….???
The concept of news room - the creative department of ad agencies – the studio – the shoot floor will have a paradigm shift once AI will take the driver seat, and, that day is not so far. The boon of AI already been glorified in length and breadth by the top captains of various industries across the globe, and, India is also not an exception. But, the bane is still under the wrapper.
The annual report titled “Journalism, Media and Technology Trends and Predictions 2024” surveyed around 314 CEOs, editors-in-chief and heads of digital or innovation at print, broadcasting and digital news organizations from 56 countries, including India.
The report confesses, AI has already made a stir in the news landscape. It ensures that it has a transformative effect on journalism. Studies have suggested that it may disrupt the media landscape while allowing for new types of experimentation in the newsroom. It is significant that journalists proactively identify the way they can harness emerging technology to improve their reporting and the media industry as a whole.
How AI will be used in News Room?
As per the report, one of the most significant and common uses of AI tools in newsrooms is back-end automation tasks like tagging, copy-editing, and transcription. Almost 56% of news executives opined that AI was a high priority for this back-end automation task. Two years ago, only 29% of news executives considered this use case a high priority.
The present experimentation of AI in nut shell:
Summarization, Headline testing, Copy-editing, note-taking and transcription, Translation, Image generation, Article generation, AI presenters and news readers.
Indeed, the most vulnerable areas where the existing media skilled manpower would be adversely effected in the country, on the contrary, huge numbers of media institutes, colleges and varsities are ongoing with their diploma, degree and post graduate programs having thousands of students aspiring for a media profession. And, already a colossal passed out numbers working in the industry with that so called stigma – obsolete.
What will happen to those numbers (if AI has been rampantly used) and the future media graduates and post graduates regarding their placement in the media industry with stability and growth???
No one has thought about this. Let us change the curriculum o f all academic institutions where media – entertainment else film is taught irrespective of public and private set up. Implant AI in the syllabi, train students with the latest applications of AI then and only then AI would become a real friend to us, otherwise, a tremendous backlash is inevitable.
And, what is the planning to keep that efficient generations who took the Indian media industry into the next level (detailed statistics given in the beginning of the piece)??? The owners, the ministry, the so called media barons – have you thought about them. If not, then that would be a big injustice for them as well as AI. The time will not blame the AI, but, accuse “YOU” the implementer. Let us give a smooth pathway of AI by doing so.
Prof Debanjan Banerjee is an Author, Editor, Speaker, Political Commentator and Media Educator. Presently he is the Dean of Media Science, Techno India Main Campus and Adviser, IGE. He is also the Visiting Professor, SRFTI, Ministry of I & B, Govt. of India. He can be reached at debanjan.mediaguru@gmail.com