The Columbian's AI Stand: Human Truth-Telling Wins

0:00It's April 4th. This is Vancouver News today, local news powered by AI. The Columbia newspaper is keeping AI at arms length in their newsroom. They flat out refuse to use it for writing, editing, or creating articles and photos. Reporters there say 90% of the job is building trust with sources and nailing interviews. Stuff machines can't touch. They're already dealing with headaches from AI scraping their stories, rewriting them wrong and posting fakes that confuse folks and steal ad money. Chapats pull content too, spitting out twisted versions. To fight back, they send cease and desist letters when sites rip them off. A recent Instagram comment blasts at AI after one of their pieces, calling out bad trip plans from chat tools, like suggesting a 12 hour midpoint on, a 6 hour drive, ironic part, the commenters profile, and post-screen, AI-generated images. They do let reporters use AI for basics, like transcribing audio or crunching data, but

1:00only of humans double check everything. Big picture, AI might flood the web with junk, making people crave verified news from spots like theirs even more. In the end, as misinformation ramps up, outlets like the Colombian bet on human truth-telling to cut through the noise and stick around for the long haul.