AI-Newsmakers and the Rise of Digital Centaurs.
Kwame Nketia was no more unusual than his fellow journalists, but I guess it was his turn to run the gauntlet in providing evidence of a controversial court case, by rendering his memories as visual ‘facts’.
Whilst for the most part when Gen AI broke users and practitioners sought creative freedom in producing fictional, sci-fi or aspirational stories, Kwame, with a burgeoning number of journalists, was using AI to create non-fiction.
This included stories about memories, recollections in the absence of footage, and re-enactments which could be tested. There were caveats in place.
Science fiction had crossed over to science fact. Part of that rendering was down to defending the arguments around Gen AI’s use, (a soon-to-be obsolete word ) and acceptance. Kwame did this with alacrity.
To get this point not only involved antecedent knowledge to build a cogent case, but fundamental changes to recognising digital centaurs (DCs). These were creative journalists who rolled AI, OSINT, and Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs). Above all, as professionals they subscribed to the various guardrails that provided validity to their work.
Furthermore, variable models of multipolar mimesis singularities ( the next step to General Machine AIs) were now running various systems. Thus the use of DCs brought a treasured quality to users — human emotion.
Kwame Nketia is the alto-ego of me, Dr David Dunkley Gyimah. I’ve had a career seeped in innovation and cross disciplines — from a Chemistry grad, journalist, artist and academic. What you’ve read so far isn’t science fiction.
The social history of technological breakthroughs has been an enduring one for the narrative of those who first gather around a tech and codify its form. Inevitably they become resistant to change. Carolyn Marvin’s brilliant book When Old Technologies Were New, is a fitting example to read.
TV journalism, just over 70 years old is as a much a victim of stasis and often gatherers’ inertia. The question of AI usage in news isn’t so much if, but, when. But from one conference to another, it’s a subject that if it’s on the table is rarely analysed through a systems approach to consider a problem.
Social media’s, a tour de force today, happened because people demanded greater access to tell their stores, which established media could not survive. In spite of my media background, like millions it was social media and the web that you provide me a platform when in 2004 I launched a video platform ( Youtube didn’t exist).
Gen AI will do as much. But for managing the future, as I spoke to a senior BBC figure, there’s a pressing need for inclusive policies of several kinds to be set in place.
You can read more here. http://www.viewmagazine.tv/GenAI.html
