AI-powered news articles and newsrooms are still an adverse prospect among global audiences despite the technology's prevalence across other professional fields, according to a recent Reuters study.
The study, which was conducted with nearly 100,000 people across 47 countries, found that people are particularly suspicious of news content generated with AI, especially on political topics.
At least 52% of the US respondents, and 63% of the UK population, express discomfort towards the idea of newsrooms using AI to produce and disseminate news to the public.
The high levels of hesitance in the two countries coincide with the rise in people's concerns about "fake news" online, especially in nations heading to election periods.
The study was reported amidst the industry's growing hesitance towards generative AI following reports of the most downloaded news app in the US being caught spreading fake AI-generated news articles.
AI Hesitancy Presents New Financial Hurdles for News Outlets
With people more hesitant to AI integration in news production, news outlets have been noted to look for alternative revenue sources amid dwindling subscription counts and other financial hurdles.
One notable trend that has recently swept across the industry is the rise of news organizations finalizing deals with AI firms to let their licensed content train AI models.
Reuters itself was earlier reported to be entering discussions with AI providers to license its news articles and content.
The deal would be in addition to the publisher investing $100 million per year on generative AI research to its Westlaw Precision legal team.
This was after Axel Springer, the parent company of Business Insider and Politico, inked a deal with OpenAI to promote summarized content of its articles on ChatGPT in exchange for allowing the AI firm to use its licensed articles.
Related Article : OpenAI Lands a Deal With The Financial Times for Training Data
Alternative News Sources Rise in Popularity
While mainstream news outlets have been losing their steam in public popularity, the opposite can be said for social media influencers providing news tidbits to their followers.
The same Reuters study recorded a rise in people choosing social media personalities providing political commentaries like former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson and podcast host Joe Rogan over actual news reporters.
Even convicted radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has gained a massive following after his and InfoWars' accounts were reinstated on X (formerly Twitter) after being banned in 2018.
