Amid growing concerns over artificial intelligence (AI) replacing human editorial jobs, Sky News has created an AI news reporter to put them to the test.
Together with Norwegian YouTube and coder, Kris Fagerlie, Sky News created the reporter using ChatGPT and other publicly accessible AI software.
They found that the AI reporter was able to pitch a "topical, accurate and impartial story idea" within a single 20-minute software run.
But they also found that the reporter made vital mistakes, falsifying expert evidence for its article (something that's called "hallucinations" in AI science) and requiring human intervention to uphold other ethical and editorial standards.
As ChatGPT calls for text prompts, Fagerlie and Sky News created two "agents" for the experiment — a 'reporter' and an 'editor' — so that the AI could prompt itself throughout the process.
The 'reporter' was then challenged with pitching eight different story ideas before prompting itself to research one, find experts for quotes and source AI-generated images. The result was a 300-word, AI-generated article and an complementary 90-second TV report.
Commenting on the results of their experiment, Tom Clarke, Science and Technology Editor for Sky News, said: "Generative AI undoubtedly has the world in a spin, as experts grapple with its increasing sophistication, and the resulting threats it presents. Our experts got right to the heart of the debate, putting AI to the test to see if it really could replace our jobs.
"Language and video generating AIs proved they are so powerful now they could comfortably replace some of the tasks we do. But, I think it’s fair to conclude that the imagination and rigour of real-world journalists means my job is safe for now."
