The rise of artificial intelligence in journalism has sparked urgent questions about the industry’s future direction and its relationship with technology.
Current state of journalism: Trust in news media has hit concerning lows, with only 32% of Americans believing journalism provides fair and accurate reporting.
- Traditional metrics of industry health, including journalist employment and local news coverage, have declined significantly over two decades
- News organizations have repeatedly sought technological solutions to their digital challenges
- The current focus on generative AI represents the latest attempt to find a technological fix
AI’s limitations in journalism: Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT present fundamental problems for news organizations, despite claims about their potential to automate content creation.
- LLMs are prone to “hallucination,” generating plausible but potentially false information
- Recent surveys show 80% of Americans express concern about news organizations using AI
- The majority of Americans oppose AI use in newsrooms except for language translation
The scale problem: The journalism industry’s pursuit of scale-driven strategies has proven increasingly problematic in the digital age.
- AI-generated content can be produced at minimal cost (approximately $0.002 per 1,000 words)
- The flood of AI-generated content threatens to overwhelm legitimate journalism
- Traditional scale-based approaches to news distribution are becoming unsustainable
The anti-scale alternative: A new approach focused on human connection and community engagement offers a potential path forward.
- Emphasis on “Actual Experience” (AE) involving direct human interaction and observation
- Focus on building trust through relationships rather than automated content generation
- Development of tools that help journalists foster digital communities across fragmented platforms
Technical challenges ahead: The transition to an anti-scale approach requires rethinking fundamental aspects of digital journalism.
- Need for new metrics beyond traditional pageviews and click rates
- Development of products that clearly differentiate human-created journalism from AI content
- Tools to help journalists navigate and build communities across diverse digital platforms
Looking forward: The anti-scale movement represents a potential paradigm shift in how journalism approaches technology and audience engagement, though significant questions remain about implementation and measurement of success in this new model.
Recent Stories
DOE fusion roadmap targets 2030s commercial deployment as AI drives $9B investment
The Department of Energy has released a new roadmap targeting commercial-scale fusion power deployment by the mid-2030s, though the plan lacks specific funding commitments and relies on scientific breakthroughs that have eluded researchers for decades. The strategy emphasizes public-private partnerships and positions AI as both a research tool and motivation for developing fusion energy to meet data centers' growing electricity demands. The big picture: The DOE's roadmap aims to "deliver the public infrastructure that supports the fusion private sector scale up in the 2030s," but acknowledges it cannot commit to specific funding levels and remains subject to Congressional appropriations. Why...
Oct 17, 2025Tying it all together: Credo’s purple cables power the $4B AI data center boom
Credo, a Silicon Valley semiconductor company specializing in data center cables and chips, has seen its stock price more than double this year to $143.61, following a 245% surge in 2024. The company's signature purple cables, which cost between $300-$500 each, have become essential infrastructure for AI data centers, positioning Credo to capitalize on the trillion-dollar AI infrastructure expansion as hyperscalers like Amazon, Microsoft, and Elon Musk's xAI rapidly build out massive computing facilities. What you should know: Credo's active electrical cables (AECs) are becoming indispensable for connecting the massive GPU clusters required for AI training and inference. The company...
Oct 17, 2025Vatican launches Latin American AI network for human development
The Vatican hosted a two-day conference bringing together 50 global experts to explore how artificial intelligence can advance peace, social justice, and human development. The event launched the Latin American AI Network for Integral Human Development and established principles for ethical AI governance that prioritize human dignity over technological advancement. What you should know: The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, the Vatican's research body for social issues, organized the "Digital Rerum Novarum" conference on October 16-17, combining academic research with practical AI applications. Participants included leading experts from MIT, Microsoft, Columbia University, the UN, and major European institutions. The conference...