Google’s ‘Genesis’ AI tool could help journalists save time. (Image: Photo by Daniel Thomas on Unsplash)
Google is said to be testing a new AI-powered tool called ‘Genesis.’ It is designed to help news publishers write articles, but some fear it might lead to generic news stories.
Google is reportedly developing an AI tool to assist news publishers in writing news articles. According to The New York Times, the search giant has already approached major news organizations, including The Washington Post, News Corp, the owner of The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times itself.
The tool—internally called ‘Genesis’—can consume information about recent events and generate news stories based on that information. Google believes that it can be used as an “assistant” for journalists by automating certain tasks, which could save them time.
It is said to have the ability to distance the news industry away from the “pitfalls of generative AI.”
However, few executives who saw Google’s pitch, described the AI tool as “unsettling,” while two others said that the tool pushes the act of producing accurate and artistic news stories into more of a generic zone.
“In partnership with news publishers, especially smaller publishers, we’re in the earliest stages of exploring ideas to potentially provide A.I.-enabled tools to help their journalists with their work,” Jenn Crider, a Google official was quoted as saying by The New York Times.
She added, “Quite simply, these tools are not intended to, and cannot, replace the essential role journalists have in reporting, creating and fact-checking their articles.”
This development comes at a time when newsrooms around the world are debating whether or not to include AI in their workflows. However, as The New York Times points out, organizations like the Associated Press (AP) have already embraced AI and use it to write reports on corporate earnings.
It would certainly be interesting to see how Google positions the tool and how it manages to differentiate between its PaLM 2-powered AI chatbot, Google Bard. Furthermore, as the debate on whether AI will replace jobs rages on—especially in Journalism and publishing—Google might find itself in need to develop novel ideas for using generative AI and promote ‘Genesis’ as more of a helper rather than a replacement.
