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<\/div>Northwestern Arkansas has a new local news site — and it's entirely AI-generated, complete with \"AI reporters\" and all.<\/p>
According to Nieman Lab<\/em><\/a>, the digital news website called OkayNWA<\/em> has been around since it first cropped up as an app last year. And unlike a lot of AI-generated local news sites, most of which fall under the umbrella of \"pink-slime\" journalism — automated local news content that's politically biased and often propagandized — OkayNWA<\/em> isn't shy about its liberal use of AI.<\/p> \"At OkayNWA<\/em>,\" reads the website's About page<\/a>, \"we've embraced the cutting-edge potential of artificial intelligence to redefine how news is sourced, reported, and presented to you.\"<\/p> OkayNWA's<\/em> self-avowed redefinition of news reporting involves scraping the web for local happenings and publishing them under the bylines of the website's \"AI reporters,\" each of which has a different beat. \"Benjamin Business,\" for example, is the website's \"business reporting lead,\" while \"Sammy Streets\" is its \"chief of street-level reporting.\" The website mostly publishes pretty low-stakes stuff, including information about upcoming local events, blurbs about area business openings and closings, and so on.<\/p> And according to the site's owner, the avoidance of controversial or otherwise more complex topics is intentional.<\/p> \"The articles should only be about events and fun and good times,\" Jay Price, the app developer who launched the site, told Nieman Lab<\/em>. \"I don't want crime or politics, or even city council stuff.\"<\/p> But while it's great to have a resource for finding things like local events, the site's stated mission of redefining news and reporting raises the question: is this actually<\/em> news? And how might a site like this impact the broader — and struggling<\/a> — world of local reporting?<\/p> Price was inspired to start the site after he moved to Bentonville, Arkansas with no connections.<\/p> \"I was trying to figure out what to do here and there was information spread all over the place,\" the app developer told Nieman Lab<\/em>, \"whether it be Facebook, Instagram, various event aggregator sites and email lists.\"<\/p> But even publishing blurbs about benign events, Price admitted, came with its own challenges.<\/p> \"I was seeing the bots pick up news as events, and I wasn't sure what to do with it, honestly,\" Price told Nieman Lab<\/em>. \"Like, a new bar is opening this Friday. Yeah that's an event, but it's also kind of news.\"<\/p> But instead of conducting some on-the-ground interviews with the bar's owner and patrons, the AI takes care of the write-up, leading to questions of what gets lost in that process.<\/p> For one, local newspapers are incredibly important<\/a>. Without them, local governments often aren't being held accountable, fewer people vote, and communities become more polarized.<\/p> Thankfully, as Nieman Lab <\/em>notes, OkayNWA <\/em>isn't the only newspaper in Bentonville — but as local newsrooms around the country continue to dwindle<\/a> in size and number, it won't be surprising to see automated outfits resembling O<\/em>kayNWA <\/em>crop up to fill those voids. And to that end, though local news does cover stuff like bar openings and live music events, it also includes hard-hitting reporting about topics like crime, politics, and, yes \"city council stuff.\"<\/p> The fact that Price actively avoids publishing actually newsworthy content with his AI seems to speak strongly to the limitations<\/a> of generative AI when it comes to fully automated news. Reporting is a complex task, and generative AI often gets things wrong<\/a>.<\/p> So while it's great to have a website where people can find information about local events, calling this a \"news\" site is at best, questionable — and at worst, existentially depressing<\/a>.<\/p> More on AI and journalism: <\/strong>Beloved Local Newspapers Fired Staffers, Then Started Running AI Slop<\/em><\/a><\/p> The post This Entirely AI-Generated Local \"News\" Site Is Incredibly Depressing<\/a> appeared first on Futurism<\/a>.<\/p> Link: Northwestern Arkansas has a new local news site \u2014 and it's entirely AI-generated, complete with \"AI reporters\" and all. Continue reading
This Entirely AI-Generated Local \"News\" Site Is Incredibly Depressing<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"