Jeff Bezos’s Washinton Post Plans to Add Random Opinion Writers Edited by AI

Given how artificial intelligence’s pitfalls dominate the daily news cycle, you’d think that the media industry would take a cautionary approach to AI. Yeah, think again. In an effort to boost readership, the Washington Post plans to expand its opinion section to include newbie writers who will be guided by artificial intelligence. Since April, the Post has worked on scaling an initiative to bring new voices to the paper. Multiple people confirmed with the New York Times that the program, dubbed Ripple, involves publishing established Substack writers and nonprofessionals. On the surface, it sounds similar to previous contributor models utilized (not necessarily successfully) by the Huffington Post and Forbes. The biggest difference is that the Post won’t guide new writers with a human. That’s way too basic. Instead, the outlet will use Ember, an AI coach, to oversee the process. Per the Times, its current prototypes include a “story strength” tracker and a sidebar laying out basic c ... Read full article.