In today’s digital age, thanks to new technologies, we can enable what was previously considered impossible. Artificial intelligence (AI) plays an essential role here: From virtual assistants on smartphones to automatic financial transactions to military space applications, AI helps to make processes in all areas more efficient, more powerful and more creative.
How AI is Transforming Media and Entertainment Industry?
According to the newspaper “Welt” , Germany wants to support the AI industry with a total of three billion euros by 2025, which would be 500 million euros per year. The consequences will be particularly noticeable in the media and entertainment industry, as PwC says AI contributes approximately $ 150 billion to this sector annually. AI holds enormous potential for the way media companies procure, edit and distribute content. It can make processes more efficient, reduce inconsistencies and contribute to increased added value. The combination of top content with the personalization of target groups around the world enables seamless and meaningful messages to be provided.
Since a future with AI seems inevitable, it is of the utmost importance to use it correctly – primarily according to ethical rules. The urge to develop or adopt the latest AI technologies – from content creation to use – is increasing rapidly in all areas. This goes hand in hand with the growing responsibility for users and providers of such technologies, whose ethical effects have to be taken into account. How can we ensure that the use of AI benefits everyone involved, from authors to content users, while
remaining true to the principles and values of journalism?
The fight against fake news According to recent research by Reuters, nearly three quarters of media companies are currently investigating how AI can facilitate the efficient creation and distribution of content with voice and face recognition or correction applications. News agencies like Bloomberg are already dependent on automation for standard reporting (such as financial market reports) so that journalists have more time for other topics. By 2027 90 percent of all articles worldwide are estimated to be created using artificial intelligence.
AI has clear potential for the positive transformation of the production of news and content. In the coming years, it will play a central role in deciding what content we perceive and read every day. But how much power and influence should AI have? “Thinking” technologies are becoming increasingly useful, but they should be aligned with certain ethical principles. This is particularly important when it comes to fighting fake news.
Machine learning (ML) is the science of computers that learns with minimal human intervention using data, pattern recognition and decision-making and is of central importance for the AI-based fight against fake news. The idea behind this is that machines should increase their performance over time and gradually become autonomous. Not surprisingly, AI is used to automatically generate and select content.
However, before this point can be reached, the ML algorithms must first be trained and programmed by humans in order to improve AI accuracy. This step is extremely important because machines without human input lack basic human skills such as common sense, insight and context-sensitive consideration of things. This creates many difficulties, for example in determining whether information is true or false. With the use of artificial intelligence without human control, news agencies risk blurring the line between news and opinion. As a result, companies favor fake news rather than contain it.
Personalization without filter bubbles
By personalizing content, users can achieve higher quality experiences, such as is the case with streaming services such as Netflix, which give recommendations for shows based on individual consumption trends and behavior. Media companies are also no exception and are already using AI to meet the demand for personalization.
For example, the Times and Sunday Times developed “James” for News UK. This relatively new recommendation service remembers individual preferences and automatically personalizes the format, time and frequency of each issue. In essence, human algorithms are programmed, but they improve over time as the computer itself works towards a set of results.
The principle of personalization sounds attractive. But what happens if users only listen to and read the news they want to hear and read instead of finding out what is actually going on around them and in the world? This phenomenon is known as the “filter bubble”. Platforms specifically develop user retention algorithms that can result in users only perceiving content that complies with their beliefs and opinions. Media companies are obliged to find the right balance between the provision of content for users who on the one hand meet their particular interests and needs, but on the other hand also enable factual reporting.
AI opens up promising opportunities, but like every medal, it has two sides. We need to make sure that the use of AI benefits everyone, from creators to content users – while respecting the ethical principles and values of journalism. To do this, we have to make media companies responsible and make ethics a condition of using AI – with the right training and transparency in data collection. Otherwise, the use of artificial intelligence could cause more problems in the long run than it is beneficial.
Artificial intelligence is rapidly gaining in importance in almost all areas. The media industry is no exception. Media companies that want to continue to be successful in the future cannot avoid using the advantages and opportunities of AI for themselves.
Data driven media in practice
There are already areas in which AI is successfully used in the media. For example, the company Retresco, founded in Berlin in 2008, is able to produce finished texts from huge amounts of structured data practically at the push of a button.
For example, weather reports for thousands of cities or even match reports in football for all matches of a weekend from the district class to the Bundesliga can be generated automatically in a very short time using the available data.
AI has many advantages for the media industry
The advantages of producing content through artificial intelligence are obvious. Texts can be generated significantly faster and cheaper than would ever be possible through the use of journalists.
As a study by the LMU Munich showed, readers are also more than satisfied with the quality of the texts, which are backed up with numerous facts thanks to data-driven media. Frequently, the respondents could not even tell whether the text was written by an algorithm or by a human.
The importance of AI in the media is growing
At the moment, the uses of AI in the media industry are still limited, so that at least for the time being it cannot completely replace journalists.
But artificial intelligence and self-learning systems are becoming increasingly powerful. According to Ray Kurzweil, co-founder of Singularity University in California, computer chips could exceed the performance of the human brain by 2035.
It is therefore only a matter of time before AI is able to recognize even complex relationships independently, draw the correct conclusions from them and create suitable content.
Sooner or later, artificial intelligence will be responsible for much of the published news. With reference to Chris Hammond (co-founder of Narrative Science), the BBC report “Future of News” published in early 2015 assumes, for example, that the proportion of content published by journalists will decrease to around 10 percent by 2026.
AI will fundamentally change the media industry
AI is fundamentally changing journalism as we know it. Artificial intelligence and machine learning systems will become an integral part of the media industry.
Their use will by no means be limited to the production of content. In the future, thanks to AI, not only advertising content but also messages will be played out more and more individually based on the personal interests of the readers. Even paywalls can then be tailored to the reader, both in terms of price and content.
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