We have recently witnessed a significant milestone in Indian journalism with the launch of the nation’s first AI anchor by The India Today group. The bot named Sana is assigned to present news updates several times a day and will be appearing Aaj Tak news channel of the India Today group. Kalli Puri, the vice-chairperson of India Today, first presented Sana during the 20th edition of India Today Conclave, which PM Narendra Modi attended. She described Sana as bright, gorgeous, tireless and able to speak multiple languages.

The arrival of AI bot anchors

According to DW, by the introduction of AI news anchors through Xinhua, a state news agency in China, in 2018, the world of journalism has witnessed the adoption of next-generation technology. In 2020, they introduced Xin Xiowei, a virtual news presenter who can mimic human voice, gestures and mannerisms in 3D. This year, they introduced their first female anchor.

Sana has a human-like appearance and delivers information and reads news using text-to-speech technology when an amount of data is being fed into it.

Last month, Svoye TV in Russia introduced Snezhana Tumanova, their first virtual weather presenter.

These current transformations happening in the media landscape remain persistent around the world. The radical shift in communication and information technology paved the way for digital advancements and innovation, which sparked a digital revolution. These digital revolutions are inevitable for a nation’s development.

Concerns

NewsGPT, the world’s first news channel solely working on Artificial Intelligence, was launched in March, raising concerns for media professionals. Meanwhile, Alan Levy, CEO of NewsGPT, mentioned it as a game changer in the world of journalism.

As much as the enthusiasm, there are growing concerns over the proliferation of robot journalism. Shailaja Bajpai, a media professional, told DW, “AI will definitely have an abiding influence on journalism in general”. “However, it is too early to say how deep it will be and how much of a difference it will make”. “The chances are while bots can do news bulletins, they may not be able to react and conduct debates the way individual anchors do today”, she added.

With her extensive experience and knowledge in writing about television development in India, she claimed that AI is a big challenge for media professionals. She also suggested that explanatory journalism, on-the-ground reporting and investigative journalism can’t be a battlefield for AI bots as they can’t replicate human expertise and observation. “We have to be prepared to change and adapt to withstand this challenge or perish in the attempt,” she added.

Is the AI in journalism a boon or bane?

Pamela Philipose, a media columnist, shared her concern regarding AI and its applications and said it is real and mentioned that the ‘Alexas’ of the newsroom would perform the difficult tasks more effortlessly than a journalist drawing a salary in the future.

“The more multi-layered problem is the potential AI has to create disinformation by design”, Philipose told DW. “Fake news now passed around through WhatsApp texts and images which lead to stolen elections, and the stigmatising of targeted communities may appear like child’s play once AI’s full potential in repurposing raw data is realised”, she added.

Most media professionals identify the growing dependence on algorithms and automation, which threatens to challenge the credibility and trustworthiness of journalism. Along with these concerns, AI also raises concerns regarding job security and also the possibility of perpetuating biases in the data which it uses to generate content.

The shaping debates

For the last few years, with the increase in the cost of on-the-ground reporting, prime-time TV news has been dominated by studio debates. “AI anchors and applications could trigger a democratic breakdown in ways not imagined at the present moment. I think that should be our greatest worry”, Philipose said.

Another Indian journalist, Nidhi Razdan, pointed out that the establishment of AI news anchors should undergo some regulations in order to avoid journalism undergoing further challenges. “Having said that, perhaps AI anchors will do a better job at being objective than their real-life counterparts, most of whom no longer speak truth to power,” said Razdan. “The way forward is to be cautious about what AI brings to the table,” she added.