The Director General of the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), Stanley Similo, has reiterated that human oversight is crucial in the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Similo took part in a panel discussion on the sidelines of the BRIDGE Summit, underway in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.
The BRIDGE Summit is a first-of-its-kind event that acts as both a conference and exhibition for media and entertainment related industries.
It gathers 1000s of creators, communicators, brands, leaders, and decision-makers in one space to collectively align towards a more valuable, connected, and prosperous future.
Speaking at a panel discussion, titled ‘Reimagining the Newsroom: Next Gen Tools and the Tech Shift’, Similo recognised that while AI offers many benefits, newsrooms must remain vigilant about its potential to harm journalism's accuracy and credibility.
In this regard, he pointed out that newsrooms need to ensure that human interaction remains front and center of any interaction with artificial intelligence.
"It does not matter what you do; your news must remain authentic even if you go and use AI. The human intervention must remain 100% in control because in today's world, where you have fake news and misinformation, anything that you pick up from AI can be anything, and whether it is real or not, AI will not tell you. It will just give you exactly what you want. So, that intervention to make sure this story is really what it should be, human judgment, must be there."
Also contributing to the discussion was Viory News Agency's Verification Desk Manager, Zois Zannikos, who pointed out that AI has changed the media landscape drastically in a short period of time.
"Let us think for a moment how absurd it is that we actually have to mark the human-made content. It is a little crazy, is it not? and it happened so quickly, in a year, two years. We are at the precipice of a major change in how people consume and generate information".
The co-founder and CEO of India's Global Capability Centre for Media Innovation, Vinay Sarawagi, stated that the media is entering a new era in which more content is created that can be consumed and newsrooms have a distinct role.
"We will have to become the super moderators of society. To a certain extent, newsrooms were always moderating and bringing the common conversation for everyone to consume. In the last 5-10 years, with so much of social media and the creative economy. And there was so much need for the social media engine to generate content, and journalists fell short of creating content as there are only so many journalists.”
Participants in the discussion agreed on the need for training and capacity building in the field of AI.