Generative Journalism

Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can produce. It doesn't evaluate quality or quantity, and it has an output. The "artificial intelligence" has been trained with a good deal of data to form a picture of the "real world." Anyone can provide data for a chatbot, which is based on machine learning and GenAI, and it's simple. Google has a free AI tool (beta stage) that can record up to 50 sources. I fed the machine four years of E3 Magazine issue and our website's link.

After a few minutes of “thinking”, the Google AI machine provided some answers. What it offered was surprisingly concise and almost error-free, but it wasn't storytelling. It was more like a data sheet, not an SAP community report. However, it was useful for a quick overview.

Generative grammar is a theory that describes human language using math, algorithms, automata, and psychology. It explains how a source can generate an infinite number of sentences in a language by mastering a finite set of rules. Generative AI has the potential to change work by expanding skills and automating some tasks. In other words, generative AI can take over tasks that currently account for 60 to 70 percent of working time.

In the past, experts said that IT would only be able to automate half the time, at most. But the technology is getting better and better and can do more and more. A big part of this is that AI can understand natural language usage. This is important for tasks that makes up 25 percent of our time at work. This means GenAI has a greater impact on knowledge work, which is associated with jobs that pay more and require more education.

Will I now be unemployed as a journalist? The question is justified and complex. In his book, Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant examines the extent to which our experiences truly bring us new insights. According to Kant, we always need both experience and reason. According to the empiricists, pure intellectual knowledge appears to be insufficient. This then prompts the question: what can generative AI do? What opportunities does journalism have?

GenAI is based on existing knowledge and can deliver surprising results through systematic analysis, which is by no means new. The findings of GenAI may be enlightening for people who do not possess much information, but Kant would say that these findings are mostly true statements, and that mathematics does not truly produce new findings, but rather—at best—true statements of things that are already known.

Journalism is not merely storytelling, but also an intellectual activity. This begets the hope that generative journalism will truly generate new insights. I will begin working with GenAI to reference and verify my own findings. I'm looking forward to a new year with many new experiences in the SAP community and wish happy reading to all readers of E3 Magazine.