The proliferation and use of Artificial intelligence (AI) have been met with celebratory acceptance in scholarly discussions and the public sphere. However, in these intellectual debates, skepticism about AI adoption in mainstream newsrooms has rarely been interrogated. In this talk, dr. Allen Munoriyarwa, Research Fellow in the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, will explore widespread skepticism among journalists about AI deployment in South Africa’s newsrooms. They will discuss the genesis of AI skepticism among South Africa’s mainstream journalists. Two main broad arguments will be contoured in this talk. Firstly, they will argue that skepticism about AI among journalists in South Africa should be linked to the broader debates about the future and purpose of news in post-apartheid South Africa. Secondly, they argue that AI corporations view AI technology through profit lenses. This feeds into skepticism and mistrust, as journalists are accustomed to serving democracy- a discourse rarely aligned with capitalist profit-making intentions. This talk will contribute to the ongoing debates on AI and news production practices in less-explored contexts of the global South. Find more about this topic in a conversation with Mathias Felipe de Lima Santos – our postdoctoral researcher in Responsible AI for the RPA Human(e) AI.
Watch our session here: