Google building AI tool for journalists

California: Google is developing an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool for news publishers that can generate article text and headlines, highlighting how the technology may soon transform the journalism industry, CNN reported on Thursday.

The tech giant said in a statement that it is looking to partner with news outlets regarding the use of AI tool in newsrooms. “Our goal is to give journalists the choice of using these emerging technologies in a way that enhances their work and productivity,” CNN quoted a Google spokesperson as saying, “just like we’re making assistive tools available for people in Gmail and in Google Docs.”

Earlier, New York Times had reported that the project is referred to internally as ‘Genesis’ and has been pitched to The Times, The Washington Post and News Corp, which owns The Wall Street Journal.

Google’s statement did not name those media companies but said the company is particularly focusing on “smaller publishers”, and added that the project is not aimed at replacing journalists nor their “essential role…in reporting, creating, and fact-checking their articles,” CNN reported.

Meanwhile, the new tool comes at a time when tech companies, including Google, are racing to develop and deploy a new crop of generative AI features into applications that are used in the workplace, with the promise of streamlining tasks and making employees more productive.

However, these tools, which are trained on information online, have also raised concerns because of their potential to get facts wrong or “hallucinate” responses.

News outlet CNET had to issue “substantial” corrections earlier this year after experimenting with using an AI tool to write stories. And what was supposed to be a simple AI-written story on ‘Star Wars’ published by Gizmodo earlier this month similarly required a correction. But both outlets have said they will still move forward with using the technology, CNN reported.