This month, OpenAI announced that its new chatbot, Chat GPT, reached one million users in five days, inspiring feverish social media chatter about interactions where users asked it to respond to a wide range of amusing and/or unsettling prompts. The tool is indeed impressive, with implications for everything from education and classassignments to journalism and marketing. But while its output is entertaining, sometimes funny, and fluent — convincingly so — it is also unreliable, generating responses that can be spectacularly wrong. In an information environment in which trust is extremely low and mis- and disinformation are rampant, ChatGPT’s parlor trick of human mimicry pours gas on an already flaming dumpster fire.
We know from years of research that people will always use technologies in ways that their creators did not intend. In other sectors and industries, governments and governance bodies create rules, laws, and regulations to constrain and limit malicious or dangerous uses of potentially harmful products. But advances in artificial intelligence and algorithmic, data-centric technologies have slipped the leash and operate largely outside of those kinds of assessments and controls. With the United States finally beginning to take steps toward putting regulations in place (as other jurisdictions, like the EU, have already moved to do), it’s time to accelerate that work.
With that in mind, I have three predictions. The first is that we will see ChatGPT and tools like it used in adversarial ways that are intended to undermine trust in information environments, pushing people away from public discourse to increasingly homogenous communities. Second, I predict that we’ll see a range of fascinating on-the-ground experiments and research emerging around how we as a society adapt to image and text generation tools like ChatGPT and Dall-E, to use these incredible advances in ways that truly benefit society while limiting harms, particularly to the most vulnerable. Finally, I predict — and hope — we will see growing attention at the federal level to build meaningful guardrails around the development and deployment of these and other AI systems — ones that account for their costs to society and put the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms over pure technical innovation.
Janet Haven is executive director of Data & Society.
This month, OpenAI announced that its new chatbot, Chat GPT, reached one million users in five days, inspiring feverish social media chatter about interactions where users asked it to respond to a wide range of amusing and/or unsettling prompts. The tool is indeed impressive, with implications for everything from education and classassignments to journalism and marketing. But while its output is entertaining, sometimes funny, and fluent — convincingly so — it is also unreliable, generating responses that can be spectacularly wrong. In an information environment in which trust is extremely low and mis- and disinformation are rampant, ChatGPT’s parlor trick of human mimicry pours gas on an already flaming dumpster fire.
We know from years of research that people will always use technologies in ways that their creators did not intend. In other sectors and industries, governments and governance bodies create rules, laws, and regulations to constrain and limit malicious or dangerous uses of potentially harmful products. But advances in artificial intelligence and algorithmic, data-centric technologies have slipped the leash and operate largely outside of those kinds of assessments and controls. With the United States finally beginning to take steps toward putting regulations in place (as other jurisdictions, like the EU, have already moved to do), it’s time to accelerate that work.
With that in mind, I have three predictions. The first is that we will see ChatGPT and tools like it used in adversarial ways that are intended to undermine trust in information environments, pushing people away from public discourse to increasingly homogenous communities. Second, I predict that we’ll see a range of fascinating on-the-ground experiments and research emerging around how we as a society adapt to image and text generation tools like ChatGPT and Dall-E, to use these incredible advances in ways that truly benefit society while limiting harms, particularly to the most vulnerable. Finally, I predict — and hope — we will see growing attention at the federal level to build meaningful guardrails around the development and deployment of these and other AI systems — ones that account for their costs to society and put the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms over pure technical innovation.
Janet Haven is executive director of Data & Society.
Laxmi Parthasarathy Unlocking the silent demand for international journalism
Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
Zizi Papacharissi Platforms are over
Susan Chira Equipping local journalism
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau More of the same
Jacob L. Nelson Despite it all, people will still want to be journalists
Kirstin McCudden We’ll codify protection of journalism and newsgathering
Surya Mattu Data journalists learn from photojournalists
Jennifer Choi and Jonathan Jackson Funders finally bet on next-generation news entrepreneurs
Jim VandeHei There is no “peak newsletter”
Karina Montoya More reporters on the antitrust beat
Pia Frey Publishers start polling their users at scale
Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
Basile Simon Towards supporting criminal accountability
S. Mitra Kalita “Everything sucks. Good luck to you.”
Priyanjana Bengani Partisan local news networks will collaborate
Bill Adair The year of the fact-check (no, really!)
Jesse Holcomb Buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled
Ståle Grut Your newsroom experiences a Midjourney-gate, too
Upasna Gautam Technology that performs at the speed of news
Danielle K. Brown and Kathleen Searles DEI efforts must consider mental health and online abuse
Amy Schmitz Weiss Journalism education faces a crossroads
Janelle Salanga Journalists work from a place of harm reduction
Joni Deutsch Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence
Jenna Weiss-Berman The economic downturn benefits the podcasting industry. (No, really!)
Errin Haines Journalists on the campaign trail mend trust with the public
Gina Chua The traditional story structure gets deconstructed
Andrew Donohue We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy
Elite Truong In platform collapse, an opportunity for community
Barbara Raab More journalism funders will take more risks
Rachel Glickhouse Humanizing newsrooms will be a badge of honor
Esther Kezia Thorpe Subscription pressures force product innovation
Moreno Cruz Osório Brazilian journalism turns wounds into action
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Well-being will become a core tenet of journalism
Jody Brannon We’ll embrace policy remedies
Matt Rasnic More newsroom workers turn to organized labor
Joe Amditis AI throws a lifeline to local publishers
Kaitlin C. Miller Harassment in journalism won’t get better, but we’ll talk about it more openly
Eric Nuzum A focus on people instead of power
Alan Henry A reckoning with why trust in news is so low
Cari Nazeer and Emily Goligoski News organizations step up their support for caregivers
Rodney Gibbs Recalibrating how we work apart
Peter Bale Rising costs force more digital innovation
Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
Christina Shih Shared values move from nice-to-haves to essentials
Stefanie Murray The year U.S. media stops screwing around and becomes pro-democracy
Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
Ariel Zirulnick Journalism doubles down on user needs
Joshua P. Darr Local to live, wire to wither
Sue Cross Thinking and acting collectively to save the news
Brian Stelter Finding new ways to reach news avoiders
Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
An Xiao Mina Journalism in a time of permacrisis
Mariana Moura Santos A woman who speaks is a woman who changes the world
Christoph Mergerson The rot at the core of the news business
David Cohn AI made this prediction
Burt Herman The year AI truly arrives — and with it the reckoning
Felicitas Carrique and Becca Aaronson News product goes from trend to standard
Megan Lucero and Shirish Kulkarni The future of journalism is not you
Leezel Tanglao Community partnerships drive better reporting
Gabe Schneider Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay
Anita Varma Journalism prioritizes the basic need for survival
Johannes Klingebiel The innovation team, R.I.P.
Ben Werdmuller The internet is up for grabs again
Masuma Ahuja Journalism starts working for and with its communities
Raney Aronson-Rath Journalists will band together to fight intimidation
Eric Thurm Journalists think of themselves as workers
A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
Cindy Royal Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…
Jonas Kaiser Rejecting the “free speech” frame
Wilson Liévano Diaspora journalism takes the next step
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Mission-driven metrics become our North Star
Sam Gregory Synthetic media forces us to understand how media gets made
Tamar Charney Flux is the new stability
Jennifer Brandel AI couldn’t care less. Journalists will care more.
Lisa Heyamoto The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability
Jaden Amos TikTok personality journalists continue to rise
Tre'vell Anderson Continued culpability in anti-trans campaigns
Anika Anand Independent news businesses lead the way on healthy work cultures
Bill Grueskin Local news will come to rely on AI
Sarah Alvarez Dream bigger or lose out
Mauricio Cabrera It’s no longer about audiences, it’s about communities
Khushbu Shah Global reporting will suffer
Janet Haven ChatGPT and the future of trust
Sumi Aggarwal Smart newsrooms will prioritize board development
Paul Cheung More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs
J. Siguru Wahutu American journalism reckons with its colonialist tendencies
Eric Ulken Generative AI brings wrongness at scale
Andrew Losowsky Journalism realizes the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter
Tim Carmody Newsletter writers need a new ethics
Alex Perry New paths to transparency without Twitter
Parker Molloy We’ll reach new heights of moral panic
Kavya Sukumar Belling the cat: The rise of independent fact-checking at scale
Julia Angwin Democracies will get serious about saving journalism
Ryan Gantz “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”
Daniel Trielli Trust in news will continue to fall. Just look at Brazil.
Taylor Lorenz The “creator economy” will be astroturfed
Dominic-Madori Davis Everyone finally realizes the need for diverse voices in tech reporting
Nicholas Thompson The year AI actually changes the media business
Emily Nonko Incarcerated reporters get more bylines
Jarrad Henderson Video editing will help people understand the media they consume
Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
Cory Bergman The AI content flood
Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage
Joanne McNeil Facebook and the media kiss and make up
Jakob Moll Journalism startups will think beyond English
Ryan Kellett Airline-like loyalty programs try to tie down news readers
Emma Carew Grovum The year to resist forgetting about diversity
Delano Massey The industry shakes its imposter syndrome
Snigdha Sur Newsrooms get nimble in a recession
Sue Robinson Engagement journalism will have to confront a tougher reality
Anthony Nadler Confronting media gerrymandering
Jessica Maddox Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture
Mar Cabra The inevitable mental health revolution
Simon Galperin Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media
Josh Schwartz The AI spammers are coming
Michael Schudson Journalism gets more and more difficult
Gordon Crovitz The year advertisers stop funding misinformation
Larry Ryckman We’ll work together with our competitors
Alexandra Svokos Working harder to reach audiences where they are
Laura E. Davis The year we embrace the robots — and ourselves
Walter Frick Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets
Francesco Zaffarano There is no end of “social media”
Anna Nirmala News organizations get new structures
Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
Dannagal G. Young Stop rewarding elite performances of identity threat
Molly de Aguiar and Mandy Van Deven Narrative change trend brings new money to journalism
Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
Nicholas Jackson There will be launches — and we’ll keep doing the work
Shanté Cosme The answer to “quiet quitting” is radical empathy
Michael W. Wagner The backlash against pro-democracy reporting is coming
Amethyst J. Davis The slight of the great contraction
Ryan Nave Citizen journalism, but make it equitable
Nikki Usher This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!)
Doris Truong Workers demand to be paid what the job is worth
Juleyka Lantigua Newsrooms recognize women of color as the canaries in the coal mine
Cassandra Etienne Local news fellowships will help fight newsroom inequities
Sarabeth Berman Nonprofit local news shows that it can scale
John Davidow A year of intergenerational learning
Nicholas Diakopoulos Journalists productively harness generative AI tools
Mael Vallejo More threats to press freedom across the Americas
Sue Schardt Toward a new poetics of journalism
Julia Beizer News fatigue shows us a clear path forward
Brian Moritz Rebuilding the news bundle
Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates
Mario García More newsrooms go mobile-first
Sam Guzik AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.
David Skok Renewed interest in human-powered reporting
Dana Lacey Tech will screw publishers over
Eric Holthaus As social media fragments, marginalized voices gain more power
Kerri Hoffman Podcasting goes local
Martina Efeyini Talk to Gen Z. They’re the experts of Gen Z.
Jessica Clark Open discourse retrenches
Al Lucca Digital news design gets interesting again
Hillary Frey Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires