Gannett: Whoops! AI Cost Cutting Gets Messy
September 6, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Gannett, the “real” news bastion of excellence experimented with smart software. The idea is that humanoids are expensive, unreliable, and tough to manage. Software — especially smart software — is just “set it an forget it.”
A young manager / mother appears in distress after her smart software robot spilled the mild. Thanks, MidJourney. Not even close to what I requested.
That was the idea in the Gannett carpetland. How did that work out?
“Gannett to Pause AI Experiment after Botched High School Sports Articles” reports:
Newspaper chain Gannett has paused the use of an artificial intelligence tool to write high school sports dispatches after the technology made several major flubs in articles in at least one of its papers.
The estimable Gannett organization’s effort generated some online buzz. The CNN article adds:
The reports were mocked on social media for being repetitive, lacking key details, using odd language and generally sounding like they’d been written by a computer with no actual knowledge of sports.
That statement echoes my views of MBAs with zero knowledge of business making bonehead management decisions. Gannett is well managed; therefore, the executives are not responsible for the decision to use smart software to cut costs and expand the firm’s “real” news coverage.
I wonder if the staff terminated would volunteer to return to work to write “real” news? You know. The hard stuff like high school sports articles.
Stephen E Arnold, September 6, 2023
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