Despite risks, emerging intelligence tools offer glimpse of real benefits for news

If some dictionary issued an oxymoron of the year, it would have to be artificial intelligence, no? Doesn’t intelligence by definition suggest description of that which is real?

Whatever its linguistic irony, A.I. has become the topic of a new era in technology evolution, and it has direct implications for newspaper production and readership. Last week, our newsroom took stock of some of our present tools as well as some of the programs on the horizon for the not-distant future.

Much of what we’re currently using has limited or indirect value for readers. Many reporters and editors use applications that automatically transcribe and save interviews in formats that help collect information and assure the accuracy of quotations. More recently, Travis Siebrass, our deputy managing editor for online presentation, has been working with our information tech staff to develop systems we’ve implemented to provide preliminary work on headlines and other support material for online stories.

But few of these have direct implications for readers. Some other existing and developing programs could have a greater impact on what you see, hear and read in the Daily Herald and other readers — and give you more control over it all.

Jeremy Gilbert, Knight Chair for Digital Media Strategy at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, described many of these developments at an all-staff workshop at our Schaumburg offices. A particular phrase stuck out for me.

“Mass media, by definition, is a one-to-many business, but A.I. will help us move to a one-to-one, for many model,” he said.

By this, he meant that we’ll still be providing information for masses of readers, but you will have more ability to select and shape that information in ways that suit your needs.

This is not necessarily a reference to programs used by social media that preselect what you see according to your political and social preferences and contribute to the tribalism that has so intensified the differences among us. More specifically, it suggests applications that will help modify the tone or sophistication of reports to better suit your interests, your reading comfort level or other factors related to how you follow the news.

Gilbert described various projects that already have helped readers deepen their experience and understanding of news events. One newspaper created a program that sifts through 1,000 restaurant reviews in 50 guides to produce a form people use to make dinner plans. Building on hundreds of reports it produced in covering Kamala Harris as a prosecutor and attorney general in California, The San Francisco Chronicle built a kind of Q&A project that allowed readers to get insights how the presidential candidate might act under in various circumstances.

He of course also directed attention to emerging programs that can help reporters and editors improve their work — build informational charts to help clarify stories, sort through voluminous government and business documents to identify trends or find details that support our watchdog mission, help us better prepare for interviews and more.

So-called artificial intelligence brings with it a host of risks. Some of them emphasize our responsibility to take care in the news we report. Some will require more attention and care from you as you consider information and decide what to trust and what to do about it. All will require more interaction between us as media presenters and you as consumers, including policies on our end regarding how we will use A.I. and transparency when A.I. tools have influenced what you see and read.

But it also comes with unprecedented potential for helping us produce news and you consume and interpret it. As Gilbert noted, this will involve not just providing more, but providing better products that better suit your interests and needs.

It is indeed an interesting time, however peculiar the term that describes it.

• Jim Slusher, jslusher@dailyheral d.com, is managing editor for opinion at the Daily Herald. Follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jim.slusher1 and on X at. JimSlusher. His new book “Conversations, community and the role of the local newspaper” is available at eckhartzpress.com.