Welcome to The Upgrade

Welcome to my weekly newsletter, which focuses on the intersection of AI, media, and storytelling. A special welcome to my new readers from ProPublica, LinkedIn, Wells Fargo, and many other top organizations — you’re in good company!

In today’s issue:

• The Week’s Top AI Stories 📰

• 🎓 Next Course: AI Boost starts in February!⚡️

• 🎧Listen: WSJ’s The Future of Everything Episode

• 🎙️The Big Interview: Veteran Media Journalist Simon Owens, host of The Business of Content podcast, is Skeptical about AI…

The Week’s Top AI Stories

Top AI Headlines

• Google News Is Boosting Garbage AI-Generated Articles — 404 Media

• Google News: The Best Place to Find AI-Generated Ripoffs of Real Journalism — GizModo

• OpenAI partners with Arizona State University to use ChatGPT in classrooms — The Verge

• Meta is developing open source AGI, says Zuckerberg — VentureBeat

• A.I.’s Latest Challenge: the Math Olympics — The New York Times

• The 15 best robots and AI tech we saw at CES 2024 — ZDNET

Regulation & Policy

• It’s Time for the Government to Regulate AI. Here’s How. — POLITICO (Opinion)

• 360° on AI Regulations at Davos 2024 — World Economic Forum (Video)

Ethics & Safety

• AI shouldn’t make ‘life-or-death’ decisions, says OpenAI’s Sam Altman — CNN

• Election Wave And AI Disinformation Raise Stakes In 2024 — Barron’s

Legal & Copyright

• Is A.I. the Death of I.P.? — The New Yorker

• How a New York Times copyright lawsuit against OpenAI could potentially transform how AI and copyright work — The Conversation

• A New Nonprofit Is Seeking to Solve the AI Copyright Problem — TIME

In the Workplace

• "AI made us do it" is Big Tech's new layoff rationale — Axios

• Deloitte is rolling out an AI chatbot that can help staff answer emails and create presentations — Business Insider

• Mark Zuckerberg just escalated the war for AI talent against Google and OpenAI — Yahoo Finance

🎧Listen: WSJ’s The Future of Everything🤖

If you listen to one podcast episode this week on AI, listen to the one below from The Future of Everything. We are quickly headed towards a “dystopian hellscape” of an internet due to deepfakes unless swift actions are taken. The good news is the guest, Hany Farid, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, also lays out some sensible ways to prevent this.

• Why AI Keeps Getting Better at Making Fake Images

🎓 AI Boost: Starts in February! 💻

AI Boost for Professional Communicators and Marketers covers the essentials of Generative AI for media and marketing professionals with novice and beginner-level experience with AI tools. The live 90-minute sessions will take place on Tuesdays, starting on February 13th, at 2pm ET / 11am PT. Spots are already filling up!⚡️

SAVE 20% WITH CODE: THEUPGRADE20

🎙️Interview: Media Journalist Simon Owens

Simon Owens writes an eponymous, highly acclaimed newsletter on the media and creator economy. He also hosts The Business of Content podcast.

Note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Peter: Fantastic to have you with me here, Simon. I’ve been a fan for years since I worked at a media tech startup in the creator space. Tell me a little bit about how 2024 is kicking off for you!

Simon: I'm going into 2024 with some fresh ideas and strategies I'm slowly rolling out in the coming weeks. I developed this theory about creator businesses and that they're largely driven by parasocial relationships. And the best way to drive a parasocial relationship is through voice and seeing a person's face. So, while I will always be a writer and have a high writing output for my newsletter, I've decided I want to double down on my podcast and my YouTube channel, which is an extension of my podcast.

And so I'm going from creating two episodes a month to two episodes a week. Also, I'm switching up my subscriber benefits to focus more on personal interaction with the subscribers. Because, again, I think that's a better differentiator. If you have a parasocial relationship with me, like being able to interact with me in some way, whether it's asking me a question or having a phone call with me or something like that, that will be a larger motivator to drive your subscription.

Peter: Tell me about parasocial relationships. I know you've written on this extensively. Can you walk us through what that really means in terms of the creator economy?

Simon: I'm sure if anyone's an avid listener of a podcaster or a YouTuber, they've had the host talking into their ears for dozens of hours — or more — and have developed a strong connection to the creator. Over time, as a listener or viewer, you start to feel a personal connection. You start feeling like that creator is your friend, even though that person has no idea who you are and has no personal connection to you. It’s driven primarily through media companies that are hinging on personal brands more than you know generic media companies like the New York Times. Both in podcasting and YouTube, you hear the word “intimacy,” and that's kind of a stand-in word for this parasocial relationship that's being generated through the repetition of someone hearing your voice over and over again.

Peter: What's your take on the AI craze as we start the new year?

Simon: I gauge a lot of my understanding of whether something is overhyped or underhyped by interviewing successful media entrepreneurs. I ask them how much they cite something as a tool they utilize in their own content business. And using that metric, I think that AI is still way overhyped. There are a lot of articles about how to use AI, but are they informed by the ways that actual media entrepreneurs and media operators are incorporating AI daily? It’s marginal to many of them. Most of them are using it for research purposes and stuff like that. If they're using it at all, they may be taking transcripts and then creating an AI-generated summary to help them with their article writing and stuff like that. That's just on the margins to save them a little time. It's not providing a core function or comprising a core part of their content production. I'm going to continue to keep my eyes on whether these tools mature. In the near term, I'm watching the media outlets that have egg on their face as a result of them using these AI tools too quickly and stumbling. Overall, I'm going to be acting as a little bit more of a watchdog than an enthusiastic booster heading into 2024 for a lot of these AI tools.

Peter: It seems like almost every week, there's another outlet that's making more headlines about their poor use of AI. We've seen CNET, Sports Illustrated, and Microsoft News really stub their toe. What AI blunders stand out to you?

Simon: I think the Sports Illustrated one is probably one of the biggest. Companies like The Arena Group, they're already clashing with their editorial staff and have been boneheaded in how they work with their talent. It's obvious that these are the kinds of companies that are trying to want to replace their reporters as quickly as possible. So they’re stepping on rakes left and right. So that’s the top-of-mind example that I think of.

Peter: I'm curious: are you using any AI tools in your own personal workflows these days?

Simon: The most straightforward AI tool that I use is transcription software. As an old-school reporter, I used to transcribe all my interviews by hand. It drove me crazy with how mind-numbing it was. And then, a few years ago, I started incorporating transcription software into my workflows, and it was decent, but I would only get about 90% correct. I've definitely noticed within the last year or so that this transcription software is getting way more accurate and turning out good-quality transcripts. I think the large language models are so big that they recognize these proper nouns that used to be missed a lot. And so I'm actually kind of pleasantly surprised how often it gets that.

But in terms of my day-to-day, I don't really use any kind of chat-based software even for research purposes. I'd love to start using AI-generated images just to break out beyond just using stock photography and stuff. I haven't yet figured out what's a good AI image generator to use and how to use it effectively, but it is something that's been kind of on my to-do list.

Peter: What are some of the applications of AI that appear most promising for reporting?

Simon: Journalism is evolving now with AI, particularly in how local government meetings are covered. With fewer reporters attending events like town council or school board meetings, the rise of live-streaming platforms like Zoom during the pandemic has opened new doors. Now, it's possible to use AI transcription services, such as Otter AI, to not only transcribe these meetings but also provide concise bullet point summaries. This technology is a boon for citizen activists, citizen journalists, and even mainstream journalists, enabling them to capture and distill key information from these meetings, even if they can't be there in person. Considering the vast amount of information on the internet, especially on authoritative .edu and .gov sites, AI's ability to rapidly analyze text can be incredibly valuable for journalists focused on public service and related fields.

Don’t be shy—hit reply if you have thoughts or feedback. I’d love to connect with you!

Until next week,

Peter

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