Lessons in AI from Bloomberg's Africa Business Media Innovators 2023 conference
I was presenting a focus session on building a digital newsroom... and learning a lot about AI
Bloomberg has put itself in the running for the media organisation most involved in AI for almost a decade and, I have to say, that bet is starting to pay off.
A real highlight of last week’s Africa Business Media Innovators 2023 conference was hearing from Claudia Quinonez, the Global Head of News Innovation Lab for Bloomberg News. She said their lab takes “pitches” from all across the organisation (from people at any level) on where they would like to see automation, intelligence tools and GenAI used in the media creation process. They are big on being human-centred, but they are bullish on getting everyone involved and as much grunt work automated to leave more time in the day for deeper analysis and stronger investigations.
This philosophy is similar to what I have been advocating for: transparency and involvement at every level is crucial for media organisations to get through this on top.
Other great points from Quinonez:
If you have limited resources as a media organisation there is no shame in taking half measures. Incorporating these tools can be a gradual, iterative process. Use elaborate prompts, for example, instead of training a whole new model.
The time where we can guarantee that a chatbot won’t hallucinate is getting closer.
This idea I loved: not every newsroom problem can be solved with AI. At least the tools we are talking about, they can only help if the task you need help with is a linguistic task and if you can transform your problem into a predictive problem. Because it is good to remember that these models don’t “know” anything, but they “predict”.
These tools can extend human skills in much the same way as the Internet extended our memory.
Coding Corner (the gradual process of a journalist learning how to code)
For the generative podcast this week I added a section of code where you can remove lines from the episode after it has been scripted, but before you send it to ElevenLabs to create the audio. I know to give options to tinker with what has been generated is against the spirit of the experiment, but we need to get closer to this being a viable podcast producing service. And that is going to mean a mixture of the generative and human oversight.
What AI was used in creating this newsletter?
Besides from the image above, no AI was used. And I am realising that what is going to hold back huge amounts of content becoming generative isn’t just how the audience reacts, but because people LIKE creating. And people (including me) will probably keep writing or editing to their financial detriment long past the point where they have to.
In the news…
Lots of news out of OpenAI this week… most importantly the drop in price. GPT-4 Turbo is 3x cheaper for input and 2x cheaper for output compared to other GPT-4 pricing. The problem with scaling a ChatGPT product is that if it needs to obsessively access ChatGPT then the cost can get out of hand. These price drops are gradually mitigating that problem.
The next piece of OpenAI news is probably more exciting. They are rolling out Assistants API. This will help you build an assistant for your app or website without the need to write any code. We will explore this service in an upcoming newsletter.
From The Guardian this is a thorough read about “the promise and perils of AI in Africa”.
What’s new at Develop AI? We are expanding beyond media into helping other start-ups.
My background is clearly as a journalist. I started in magazines and honestly, when I left university I just wanted to write features for SL magazine until the day I died. However, the world has changed and thankfully so have I.
I’m finding more people are asking me about how AI can help their start-ups that are outside of the media sphere. The tools that are useful for media companies I am finding can also apply to almost every other industry. So, look out for ways that we are helping non-media start-ups and NGOs with AI tools and strategies so they can create better products and run better businesses.
Our sister organisation Develop Audio continues to promote quality audio across the African continent. I’m in Ethiopia this week (my first time here when I’m allowed outside of the airport) for Radio Days Ethiopia to give a workshop with Ruth Bekele on creating podcasts with the incomparable MethodKit. I am also giving a presentation on AI in podcasting.
A huge thanks has to go to DW Akademie for bringing me here and their unbelievable dedication to growing podcasting in Africa. Also thanks to Fojo and the great work they are doing in the sector. Also, if you are in Addis please get in touch. So far I am loving the place.
See you next week. All the best,
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