AI: Does it belong in New Zealand media?

AI has become prominent in people's lives. It’s in social media, websites and factories. For a moment, it entered radio media in Poland. Last month, Off Radio Krakow conducted an interview with an AI and the voice of deceased poet ‘Wislawa Szymborska’- a Nobel Peace prize winner who passed away in 2012. The interview was done weeks after the station fired all of its journalists.

After backlash, station editor in chief Mariusz Marcin Pulit  said it was only an experiment and canceled future interviews. “We are pioneers, and the fate of pioneers can be difficult” – he said in a statement to the New York Times. 

This experiment poses the question, how would AI go in New Zealand media?

Newstalk ZB’s News Director in Christchurch, Claire Sherwood, understands using it as a tool. “We use AI in all of our jobs, to make things easier”. ZB uses it for formulaic processes, getting ten tasks done in the time it might take a person to do one. Sherwood made it clear there’s a process for checking an AI product to ensure no errors have been made.

However, she doesn’t believe there will ever be a role for AI in interviewing and human interactions, regardless of the advancements that could be made. Sherwood said, “in terms of going on air and genuinely holding people to account – absolutely not”. In a nutshell, Claire says there’s a part for AI to play in a modern newsroom, but it should never replace a job. 

When the first AI interview was aired, it was not declared that the voices were Artificial Intelligence. Dr. Ursula Cheer, University of Canterbury law professor says this definitely strikes some legal and ethical issues.

Dr. Cheer has been lecturing in media law for the past 30 years – and is , by her words, “a media law expert”. She would be appalled if AI, as Off Radio Krakow experimented, became normalized. “It’s so essential to have full disclosure that something has been altered or created, and even then – I don’t think that's ok”.

Dr Cheer says law and ethics are one and the same and having AI would make New Zealand’s trust in media even lower than the 33% reported earlier this year. If the media loses its trust, then it will lose its power to genuinely inform kiwis of important issues. “They need to be improving that trust, and AI could certainly be a threat.” 

In a statement, Off Radio Krakow’s Mariusz Marcin Pulit said they only pulled the stunt to revive the station and attract a younger audience. It begs the question, if they didn’t have backlash, would they have stopped? Furthermore, would it have fared differently in New Zealand?