Jelena COSI (Serbia), datajournalist, training manager and Eastern European partnership coordinator for the ICIJ, Lasse EDFAST (Sweden), freelance journalist, and lecturer in the fields of data journalism, digital safety, Joseph SMITH (United-Kingdom), Staff Software Engineer / Investigations & Reporting at The Guardian.
Moderated by Eva WOLFANGEL (Germany), journalist, speaker, moderator & tech specialist.
Key issues
Is AI a risk for journalists? How can the new tools can benefit us and by what means? Should we always use these new tools? Is it an opportunity for journalists to take advantage in their work. A number of questions raising around the issues of coding and how it can benefit all of us in our daily work.
What they said:
Joseph SMITH: “Learning to write in basic code is more useful, learning python gives you a big advantage, the verifications process is already there. If the answer is wrong, it won’t work at all.”
“Hope in journalism, it’s not about writing the words on the page, it’s about finding the truth about humans, it’s a human thing, if the process were made by machines, the result would be meaningless.”
Jelena COSIC: “What do you want to do with your work and your needs? working on the passport project for three years, do your own research and build up from that.”
“Journalism is made for public good, we’re not here to serve a product but to serve the public.”
Lasse EDFAST: “Build a specific tool for finding that exact reference you’re searching for, AI is not made for that.”
“As a journalist you need to start with something tangible, stick with your profession and find the right programming for it.”
Takeaways
Artificial intelligence will never replace humans, that’s what Jelena Cosic and Lasse Edfast tried to make clear during the presentation. Journalists and scientists or tech specialists need to cooperate on these new tools. Without them, we are further away from the truth. No transparency is needed in order for journalists to bring the truth to the public in the most truthful and reasonable way. There is hope and there is optimism in our future is part of the closing message.
Arturo Cimini (FJSC Bucarest, Roumanie)