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AI, Automation and the Hybrid newsroom
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Samreen
9:03
Hello and welcome to a special lecture by Shreya Vaidyanathan, Product Manager- News and Data Science Bloomberg, New York and hosted by the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai.
9:07
Shreya Vaidyanathan introduces herself.  She explains that her introduction to news began at her engineering school after which she moved to a journalism school since she is a person who likes asking a lot of questions.
9:09
She is personally interested in algorithms and how they can be used to write stories. She draws attention to how computation and technology have changed the way we live our lives and how it affects journalism.
9:12
Moving on to automation, she says that it can paint a daunting picture about robots, but things are more systematic. Technology is a friend and helps people do things in smarter ways.
9:14
She gives insights into what automation can do for covering the global pandemic in terms of data-driven coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data can help make sense of this massive story that is still going on.
9:16
Since the Bloomberg terminal delivers real-time data and news across different mediums they have a lot of volume they publish on any given day. She says AI at Bloomberg news gives a real-time automated financial news powered by low-latency and high precision AI models
9:17
She shares an acceptance criteria to cover a valuable story for their clients that should be done in a timely manner and which has to be fully accurate.
9:18
With AI you can't be wrong, you need to be accurate. And you cant publish false news. AI unlocks a lot of potentials- it covers news first, finds a needle in the haystack with documents and research which is easier for a machine to do. These two combined help improve and accelerate coverage, Shreya elaborates
9:20
9:24
Models have adapted to the context of financial news. AI and machine learning in Google might have a general application. For example, operational costs have decreased. Additionally, Shreya shares a press release of Fitbit which was acquired by Google.
9:25
The process of AI product development isn't always about just churning a pile of data and waiting until you get the right answers, she reminds her audience
9:29
She proceeds to talk about mergers and acquisitions which is a high stakes topic, nuanced and has multiple types and stages in a deal lifecycle. Highlights that journalists need to cover this space along the lines of what a merger and acquisition is, who are the parties involved, who is the acquirer, target and seller, what is the value of the deal and so on
9:33
Shreya points out that just surfacing information isn't enough, we need context, control and a goal. So it becomes a data driven investigation with contextual evidence going back to a hybrid approach.
Do you think AI i the future of Journalism?
yes (83.3% | 5 votes)
 
No (16.7% | 1 vote)
 
Total Votes: 6
9:34
She defines the 3 phases of problem definition, data acquisition, acceptance criteria and performance evaluation
Shreya further says that there are different press releases & there is a lot of document filtering. You need to add the business model of the AI on top.
9:35
The audience asks Shreya, How does AI measure impact in the industry? The acquisition of Fitbit by Google, how does it work?
9:37
Shreya answers, that the impact of the merger is very complicated. For instance, why this is happening could be a follow-up story by our journalist in an opinion column.
9:38
Another question from the audience to Shreya is that when we do drills from press releases there is a layover that happens, then how does AI help then? 
Journalism In The Age Of AI by John Micklethwait, Bloomberg Media
9:40
Shreya answers the question by saying "that we could have trained a model on this but we haven't done it yet. It would be interesting to see how that goes."
9:42
The audience asks Shreya that AI is still in its baby steps in the industry. In the future, if press releases come as breaking news, then is AI-powered enough to identify the breaking news and put it out there? And if this goes on will there be no need for journalists? And What is the endgame of AI?
9:47
Shreya answers " it's rapidly evolving and not in its baby steps the machines are really good at breaking news as a journalist. We aren't very interested in numbers and that's why the AI looks like a task, like sharing files & coordinating It is something AI helps with. The creative aspects of journalists are still in the hands of journalists I wish I could tell you about the endgame, it is an interesting question, I will have to ponder on it."
9:48
Dev asks Shreya to explain what cyborg does for Bloomberg.
Do you think AI can replace Journalists one day?
Umm,yes (0% | 0 votes)
 
No (100% | 3 votes)
 
Total Votes: 3
9:49
Shreya explains that they have a system called cyborg that helps to identify the financial state of companies in a very quick manner, any of the big companies like Uber or Facebook give out numbers and cyborg helps to extract that and put it in a story.
9:50
The audience asks Shreya to be more specific about what kind of leverage is journalism about
9:52
Shreya says it is a really important question.
"Ways can go beyond what the terminal has. 
One aspect is to look at if I am covering a story what I would need to know in investigating for the story? Like topic clustering, What are the different elements that are present in the clustering AI can help you organize and cluster that instead of spending months searching for them. Similarly to study the way language is used. How we can use satellite imagery There’s a lot of illegal mining and cattle ranching in Amazon so the data might help us create a story." She adds
9:55
The audience asks Shreya that a lot of newsrooms use AI.
How do you exactly deal with this competition of breaking news first when it's machine vs machine?
9:56
9:57
Shreya says it is an interesting question. The competition doesn’t go away. It’s like how you can maintain the standards and still compete. I don’t think machines change. It just helps you be better. And having machines doesn’t take the competition away.
9:58
Another question for Shreya from the audience is that a lot of companies that are using AI face ethical issues like amazon. Did she face any such issues?
10:00
Shreya answers "no we deal specifically with financial press releases. And it’s definitely something that we are aware of it as an important consideration for anyone building any system. We have to adhere to the ethical guidelines that most newsrooms have Facebook has an editorial board. They are adapting things that newsrooms have been doing for ages."
10:02
Thank You for joining us.
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