As a journalist who writes about Artificial Intelligence, I keep getting asked if AI will take my job. After days of pondering this question, supplemented by reading, hours spent on YouTube, Reddit, and other social media platforms, I have come to the conclusion that AI is here to stay—and it may or may not take my job or yours. Nevertheless, big corporations seem to have adopted the adage: “AI will not take your job, but someone who knows how to use AI is more likely to claim your spot.”
Big tech may have their own agenda, after all, they need to justify the unfettered billions of dollars pumped into AI research and development. Beyond the vanity of this statement, I strongly believe that skilling oneself in AI can take you a long way.
Throughout 2024, I have been using AI for a wide range of my everyday tasks. On a sidenote, I strictly disapprove of the use of AI content (with some exceptions, which I will elaborate later on), any form of plagiarism or even the blasphemous act of solely relying on AI to do all the work for you. Remember, AI is just a tool, you have something more valuable than it – your brain – that can also shape AI outcomes in ways you may have never imagined. I am listing some of the AI tools that came in handy this year.
Perplexity AI
Picture an AI-powered search engine that brings some of the most valuable research papers right under your finger tips. In my opinion, Perplexity AI is one of the best AI-powered search engines that has been designed specifically to help journalists who want to stay abreast with the most accurate and well-sourced information. A caveat here would be that this is not your fancy AI mate that can spin an image under 10 seconds. Based on my experience, I feel the makers of Perplexity AI have put a lot of thought into building this search engine that offers real-time data retrieval, which is crucial to any journalist who wants to stay updated with the latest news and recent developments. What particularly caught my attention is that unlike the usual search engines, Perplexity delivers concise, context-aware answers with citation. This allows you to instantly verify the sources of information.
Even before OpenAI introduced its o1 model, Perplexity AI stood out with its ability to handle complex queries. It is capable of synthesising information from different sources and presenting it in a concise manner. Besides, it also supports follow-up questions leading to a conversational research experience, allowing one to dig deeper into a topic without starting all over again. I also found it to be useful in summarising lengthy articles, reports, and even data sets. I have been using the free version for all my work. The search engine allows you to refine your results with Focus modes like Web, which allows searches across the internet; Academic mode, allowing you to search research papers; Math for solving equations; Writing to generate text or chat without searching the internet; Video to discover and watch videos; and Social to look for discussions and opinions.
Getting started: Perplexity AI pretty much works like ChatGPT; all you need is a functional email ID to create an account and embark.
ChatGPT
OpenAI’s ChatGPT is truly a great assistant for journalists. It goes much further than summarising text, or helping you with drafts. I have been using ChatGPT for the last two years, and it is getting better with each passing day. While I began by using it as a platform to brainstorm ideas, today it helps me in analysing data, coming up with a rough sketch for potential stories. I have begun using it as a co-editor, to help me refine questions for potential interviews with a wide range of experts from the tech industry. ChatGPT also comes in handy as an instant editor to proofread your breaking stories, spotting grammatical, error, and uneven sentences. I am not a grammar pedant, but I am a stickler for coherent, logical and easy to read text – be it emails, copies, headlines, or anything under the Sun that involves words and syntax. I have grown to see ChatGPT as the ultimate productivity tool in the arsenal of wordsmiths. It lets you brainstorm over potential story angles, refine the flow of your thoughts, and even give a critical overview of your writing style. With Vision capabilities, I have uploaded data sheets, screenshots of tabular data, graphs, to decipher the information best-suited to the narrative in my stories.
When it comes to things that work for me, I value ChatGPT’s ability to process large datasets and summarise lengthy reports, articles, or even transcripts of my detailed interviews into insightful pointers. For journalists, ChatGPT helps in analysing trends, extracting key points from media releases, refining headlines, and coming up with ledes for social media. After OpenAI endowed ChatGPT with the internet, one can now see news developments in real time. Furthermore, the chatbot is capable of translating multiple languages, and this came in handy when I had to write a piece on Bill Gates’s interview with a German tabloid earlier this year. With text-to-image, thanks to the integration of DALL-E, I could even experiment with graphics and featured images for some of my stories this year. Fact-checking is vital for any journalist, and ChatGPT has proven to be a reliable tool for fact-checking information. More than anything, I am particularly impressed with its ability to adapt to its users’ preferences.
Getting started: An email is needed to create an account. While the free version is sufficient, it also offers access to its latest model, ChatGPT 4o Mini. However, OpenAI also offers Plus and Pro versions for those who want to go deeper into the potential of ChatGPT.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet
In November 2023, a year after ChatGPT’s launch, Anthropic introduced the latest iteration of its AI chatbot, Claude. The new Claude 2.1 became the world’s first AI chatbot with a context window of 200,000 tokens or 150,000 words. It came as a breather for the free users of ChatGPT, as one could not input large chunks of text as a prompt. With Claude 2.1, you could put a whole novel as a prompt and engage in a conversation with it to elicit the desired response. For me, the best use case of Claude has been its ability to read through documents and research papers. Over time I began using Claude as an AI tool to clean transcripts of my interviews. I could input a transcript of a recording and ask the chatbot specific questions. In case of complicated topics being discussed, Claude allows you to brainstorm with it to get broader ideas for potential stories. It is efficient at bringing the most important quotes and topics discussed in a bullet format for easy reference.
In June, Anthropic launched Claude 3.5 Sonnet, which is its advanced AI language model that assists one with research, content creation, and analysis. The model is faster, and owing to its nuanced understanding of context, it excels at generating clear and insightful responses instantly. The model is also able to handle complex, multi-step reasoning tasks. As it can efficiently process lengthy documents, reports, or interviews, the chatbot can offer key insights without losing context. It also helps in refining drafts, suggesting edits, and assisting with creating alternative story angles and headlines.
Getting started: An email is needed to create an account. Claude comes in three versions – free, Pro at $20/month, and Team plan at $25/month. For most users, the free version will be sufficient.
Pi Chatbot
Work can get overwhelming, no matter what your profession is. Last year, AI startup Inflection AI, founded by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Google DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, introduced Pi, which stands for Personal Intelligence. Pi has been uniquely designed to offer a supportive conversational experience. The chatbot focuses on emotional well-being and mental wellness. At a time when most AI tools leaned towards data syntheses and content generation, Pi became a safe and empathetic voice. For journalists, this is not a chatbot to brainstorm; rather, it is more about stress relief and getting the motivation to go through high-pressure moments at work.
When it comes to conversational style, Pi chatbot offers a warm, non-judgemental, and intuitive tone and is ideal for short mental breaks through meaningful interaction. Be it discussing burnout, writer’s block, or any other emotional toll, Pi helps its users in articulating their feelings. One of the most striking features of the chatbot is that it is capable of asking thoughtful follow-up questions and offering some practical suggestions. This makes Pi chatbot seem like an emotionally intelligent companion. Simply put, Pi chatbot serves as a digital mental wellness companion, one that can help you manage stress.
Getting started: An email is required to set up an account. The chatbot is available as an app for mobile users and a desktop version. Remember, this is no substitute for a mental health professional.
Meta AI on WhatsApp
Launched in June this year, Meta brings the goodness of AI right into your most used messaging app—WhatsApp. Meta AI, powered by Llama 3.2, is an incredibly versatile tool for everyday tasks. It allows you to create personalised greeting cards with text prompts, making it the perfect tool for sending festive wishes or professional notes to your contacts. From instant grammar checks to ensuring that your messages, captions, or notes are refined before sharing, Meta AI works like a charm. I found it useful in fixing typos, rephrasing sentences, and the biggest advantage is that it works within the chat. Meta AI can also be a handy tool to instantly draft emails and compose story pitches on the phone. Meta AI is a fast and efficient mobile-friendly assistant.
Even though AI tools make your work a lot more efficient, I regarded human intelligence as paramount. We should be aware that all these advanced tools excel in different ways, yet they fall short on several counts. It is advisable to use your own judgement while working with outputs from these tools. Remember, there is no replacement for human ingenuity.
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