Human touch gives soul to journalists' work, something AI cannot do

KUALA LUMPUR - The rapidly growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) technology has forced most companies and industries, including media organisations, to adapt and keep up with the technology trends in their daily operations.

This was further compounded when Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim called for the country to move quickly to build a robust ecosystem to drive the development and use of AI technology in the current post-normal era.

In that context, senior lecturer of Media and Communication Studies at Universiti Malaya (UM) Dr Mumtaz Aini Alivi said media practitioners need to be versatile by having journalistic skills, as well as AI fluency and digital literacy.

She said the skills or magical touch that media practitioners have can be combined with machines such as AI, to provide the best results in their challenging tasks with the current existence of social media.

While AI is able to produce articles quickly, Mumtaz Aini said AI will not take over the duties of media practitioners in the future, but rather facilitate, speed up and improve the quality of production in the field of journalism and publishing.

"I still believe that human touch is important to give ‘soul’ to a work, which the machine cannot do. Instructions can be given to the machine, but the extent to which the received data is generated by the machine depends on the human wisdom to give the instructions,” she said.

At the same time, Mumtaz Aini said that AI should not be labelled as only doing trivial tasks as it is capable of doing a lot of technological sophistication to produce more creative and faster results.

However, she did not rule out that there is a risk of AI providing less accurate data, which is something a journalist can never compromise as the accuracy of facts is one of the main principles in journalism.

"Therefore, journalists, as the initial source of data collection, need to be careful with the information obtained using AI...and editors, as the final gatekeepers, must be there to double-check everything before publication.

"When this is done perfectly, then it is not an issue with the use of AI...It would be a loss if the sophistication of AI is not used in media organisations because there are many advantages,” said Mumtaz Aini who has served as a journalist and news editor for 22 years.

Mumtaz Aini said that all media organisations in Malaysia need to make optimal use of AI in their operations and intensify it further if they do not want to fall far behind in the rapid media change.

"Otherwise, their products will have a problem attracting viewers or readers,” she said. - BERNAMA