Artificial Intelligence and Algorithms in Journalism

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and News Algorithms

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Last Updated: 2022-12-16 05:12:52 English Course Type: Self Learning

Multiple ways AI can be used in journalism and content creation
What algorithms are, and how to use them to create solutions for everyday challenges.
How to use algorithms to make connections, classify content, fine-tune, and process information
How to use the concept called 'algorithmic thinking' to create systems that address challenges by itself with minimal human input.
How algorithmic thinking works in news/journalism.

This course is a single installation of a broader advanced 4-part course called ‘Automated Content Production and News Algorithms’. It consists of 3 modules and 17 learning videos including the transcript and practice questions. This part of the course covers;

An Overview of Artificial Intelligence and its promises in automating activities and helping you solve problems.M

Multipleways AI can be used in journalism and content creation. How renowned news organizations are using AI to generate thousands of reports thereby freeing 20% of journalists' time.W

What algorithms are, and how to use them to create solutions for everyday challenges. How algorithms are used in news to generate and customize content for readers.

How to use algorithms to make connections, classify content, fine-tune, and process information How AI algorithms can be used to create news with minimal human input, and to generate personalized content while increasing engagement.

Understanding the limitations AI Algorithms, its potentials, and how to maximize it. How humans and machines can work together to increase the speed of output and scale.

How to use the concept called 'algorithmic thinking' to create systems that address challenges by itself with minimal human input. How companies are building this technique into new products to create autonomous machines.

How algorithmic thinking works in news/journalism. The multiple abilities you will gain when you begin to use the 'algorithmic thinking' approach. And lastly, the basic strategies for algorithmic problem-solving.

Internet connected devices such as; mobile phones and laptops

Non-Technicals
Beginners
Leaders
Managers
Freshers

Section 1 : Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Journalism 6 Lectures 00:06:19
Lecture 1 :
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Journalism Preview
Hello everyone and welcome to Module 1 of the course, Automated Content Production and Algorithms. In this module, we will discuss; Introduction to Artificial Intelligence. This module will cover; I. The concept of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it augments basic human tasks. II. The components of AI termed Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Natural Language Generation (NLG) III. Automation in the concept of AI IV. Weak Artificial Intelligence and Narrow Artificial intelligence V. How AI is used in Newsroom today VI. The 3 different ways AI can be used in the newsroom; News gathering, News production and news distribution. VII. Reasons why newsrooms should use AI As a reminder, after watching the videos, please proceed to read the three documents that are added to this syllabus. They include; Artificial Intelligence: Practice and Implications for Journalism, Artificial Intelligence in Journalism - A Boon or Bane, and Artificial Intelligence and Automated Journalism. After this, please ensure you take the quiz.
Lecture 2 :
What is Artificial Intelligence(AI)?
What is Artificial intelligence (AI)? AI is a collection of technologies, techniques or ideas that relate to a computer system’s ability to carry out chores or activities normally requiring human intelligence. It is a science and engineering of making intelligent machines and can be seen as a productivity-enhancing technology which when combined with human skills and abilities, can enable humans do more, and solve large scale problems that were previously not possible. AI has showed promise in automating mathematical activities, understanding language and generating language, using logic to solve problems, modeling human intelligence in an analogical reasoning task, planning, and learning. Today, artificial intelligence has expanded the capabilities of journalism through its components, Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Automation. The purpose of Automation simple: Allow machines perform repetitive, monotonous tasks in order to free up more time, allowing people to focus on more important, creative tasks that require their personal touch and judgement. The AI used in news today can be termed Weak AI, or Narrow AI, which is a machine intelligence that is limited to a specific or narrow area. Weak Artificial Intelligence (AI) simulates human cognition and benefits mankind by automating time-consuming tasks and by analyzing data in ways that humans sometimes can't. Natural-Language Processing (NLP) is a branch of artificial intelligence that helps computers with the ability to read, understand, interpret and manipulate human languages. A similar concept termed Natural-Language Generation (NLG) is a software process that transforms structured data into natural language. It is the use of programming to produce written or spoken narrative, that is almost human, from a dataset.
Lecture 3 :
How Artificial Intelligence (AI) is used in news today
How Artificial Intelligence (AI) used in news today The uses of AI in news today can be split in to three (3) areas; News gathering, News production and News distribution. News gathering: AI helps collect information and data. It can also help spot preferences through user behavior data, consumption pattern and sentiments. This collected material allows for the creation of even more user friendly content. AI can gather materials from scouring of official sources of information, to social media. AI cannot work without data, or rather for AI to work, it needs data, it treats all material like data. Examples of AI in this category are those that can recognize and catalogue metadata like age and gender from images, AI that can automatically tag topic types leveraging keywords, and AI that combines Natural Language Processing (NLG) to show interesting patterns in data. News Production: AI for news production helps automate the process of news content creation. For example, it can help semi-automatically narrate data, turning them into snippets and stories. Many news organizations who got a hint of this technology early on are using it to make data analysis in stories quick and easy, especially in financial data storytelling. Renown media houses like Associated Press (AP) has been using this technology to generating thousands of quarterly earnings reports and sports articles. This has freed up 20% of journalists’ time that was previously spent on writing recaps. News distribution: This form of AI can be used to mitigate fake news and harmful comments especially on publications and on social media platforms. In this model, a group of words are tagged harmful, and a machine model is developed and training to flag those words in the comment sections while banning the users who wrote them.
Lecture 4 :
How Artificial Intelligence (AI) is used in news today?
In 2018 Facebook acquired Bloomsbury AI, an AI Software company to leverage its team and technology to assist in its efforts to fight fake news and address other content issues. Before then, the company was helping people to execute repetitive tasks and scaling expertise. Its main product can read background documents, learns from experts’ feedback to answer questions to its customer, such as customer services or legal advice. Using Artificial Intelligence for journalism can also be termed as ‘Robotic Journalism’, and when this technology is used for newsroom reportage, it is known as Augmented Reporting. This technology brings a whole new experience for readers who will get more content, faster, and content tailored to their unique preferences. Almost all android phones have a google news bar that displays contents that you will like to read. You wonder why? This is because Google as an algorithm AI that studies your web searches and models the news updates with it. Finally, Artificial Intelligence is a welcome development in the world of journalism especially at a time where readers are demanding more relatable content, and journalists are over-stretched in trying to meet up to this demand. AI will support journalists to reduce the amount of work they have to do, while automate more work, and allowing them focus on other areas of their beat that are of more importance. **In the next video I'll get into more detail about the benefits of AI and the reasons why newsrooms should use Artificial Intelligence. That's it for now.
Lecture 5 :
Six reasons why newsrooms should use AI?
Lecture 6 :
Quiz
Quiz
Section 2 : Algorithms in News Media 8 Lectures 00:18:20
Lecture 1 :
Algorithms in News Media
Lecture 2 :
What is an Algorithm?
Lecture 3 :
Algorithms and information processing
Lecture 4 :
Algorithms and news creation
Lecture 5 :
How are algorithms used for news creation?
Lecture 6 :
Human versus Machine
Lecture 7 :
Human versus Machine
Lecture 8 :
Quiz
Quiz
Section 3 : Algorithmic Thinking 6 Lectures 00:09:34
Lecture 1 :
Lecture 1
Lecture 2 :
Lecture 2
Lecture 3 :
Lecture 5
Lecture 4 :
Lecture 4
Lecture 5 :
Quiz
Quiz
Lecture 6 :
Lecture 3

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Blaise Aboh,

96884 Course Views

3 Courses

Blaise Aboh is a Citizen Data Analyst and consultant and also the founder of AI Envoy Robotics. He is also lead partner at Orodata, a Civic Technology Organization studying and leveraging data-driven science and artificial intelligence to extract knowledge and insights from data. Blaise has equipped over 5000 media professionals with tools and technologies to practice better data science and data journalism in the past 4 years.