Originally published at: How We Use AI - AVweb
AI is changing how we tell stories; here’s how we plan to embrace it.
I guess this means the reporters that we knew until last week, are now gone. AI, is that true or false?
Words of Thursday, July 20, 2023
AVweb is the largest independent aviation news site in the world, providing breaking news and information. I have always admired AVwebs ability to break stories—it’s truly remarkable. The editorial team of AVweb has their pulse on the industry and is unmatched in covering aviation news.
Lets say this perception was one of the triggers to secure Belvoirs aviation assets. A true USP in a market flush full of average content producers. A publication which earned its readers trust over more than two and a half decades. And god almighty forgive me, the AVweb way wasn’t the most modern way of news publishing and peeps (editors and readers alike) liked it.
FLYING Media Group plans to preserve the heritage and unique voice of each of these publications, along with significantly increasing investments in content, reader experience, and digital sites. The plan will be to continue to offer the print versions of the publications and hope to introduce a bundled solution, where readers of all the FLYING Media Group properties can take advantage of the great library of content, across brands.
FLYING Media Group plans to retain Belvoir’s aviation brands’ editorial staff and contributors.
Maybe you, Mr. Fuller could leave it up to the readers to measure and compare/ contrast your words against what they perceive to be left of this particular publication today, rather than speaking down to people.
Been around for 16-17 years and I for one am not seeing a whole lot more than scorched earth and burned bridges.
Then again, maybe I am not affluent enough to understand these complex business concepts in todays aviation news industry.
Now in the endgame of typical lifecycle for small biz entity that built up a reputation and potential for profitability via a loyal readership. The buy up cycle (I ref as Mr Potatohead phase) develops a marketable product for the next bigger fish to buy up.
Two choices for longterm AvWeb readers, find (or build) the next small tribal aviation gathering, or stay here and provide comments that will allow you to relieve yourself into the wind.
I can tell within a sentence or two if the article has been produced by AI. That’s when I stop reading.
I’m all for making sites accessible to generative search engines, since that’s just the latest flavor of “SEO”.
And using LLM tools to help scan a large document and generate a summary is a good starting point, but in my experience, LLMs are terrible at picking up on context and often get the summaries wrong with regards to the technical details that actually matter.
AI tools should be used in a manner similar to handing off tasks to an intern or 1st-level employee: to offload some of the easily-repeatable tasks and create a first pass, but never as the final product. Experienced journalists should not be relegated to simply proof-reading an AI-generated product.
Put another way, and with an aviation theme, AI tools should be treated in the same way that advanced avionics and autopilots are treated: useful tools but not a replacement for a qualified pilot with good stick-and-rudder skills. But as airlines have found, a reliance upon these tools will degrade those stick-and-rudder and SA skills if they are not allowed to practice them.
Thank you AVweb for continuing to provide content that I find informative and easy to digest. I’ve embraced AI as another tool in my toolbox and have encouraged my employees, family members, and business/social acquaintances to do the same. We are each responsible for the final content we release to our customers, family, or friends under our name, and AI breaks the impasse that is sometimes presented by a blank page and a hot idea.
Lol, thanks for the laugh. Goodbye Fireclown.
Firecrown is doing the “move fast and break things” mentality with a heavy emphasis on breaking things. Other than the weight of the paper stock, Flying Magazine went downhill. I canceled. Then IFR and Aviation Consumer went away without even any sort of announcement or reply to my “where’s my magazine” enquiry. To my chagrin, now I get Flying again. Now Avweb is falling apart.
I am very impressed with the amount of content over on Avbrief in just the last several days. I’ll rely on that and AOPA for my aviation news, though I’m sure that I’ll still stop by Avweb occasionally.
IFR Magaine went away too? And I think you mean Aviation Safety, since I just got a new issue of Aviation Consumer yesterday.
I agree about Flying Magazine, too. For the size of it, there may be only at most 2 or 3 articles I find interesting and worth reading. All of the good writers have left (or perhaps they were some of the “teams that we parted ways with”).
And while we’re at it, while I’ve mostly gotten use to the new forum tools and don’t have any real issues with it now, I have found the redesign of the Avweb page to be, frankly, garbage. I have to do a whole lot more scrolling and clicking to find the article I’m looking for. But there are a lot more intrusive ads, so I’m sure that’s helping with the bottom line.
Thanks for your support, David.
So-called ‘artificial intelligence’ is no better than the total of its programmers ability and it database.
Every day we deal with the quality - NOT - of programmers: sloppy 2-year-olds.
Who tend to bias against freedom in their personal views.
News is full of horror stories of improper use of other’s Intellectual Property in the databases, which are of course collected by the same programmers.
I say AI is dangerous.
And a tool of lazy cheapskates.
Like the shysters being roasted by judges for submitting briefs with errors and questionable citations
Also with established techniques like ‘machine learning’ being mis-represented as AI.
Plus deliberately used to mislead: BC Wildfire Service warns AI photos spread misinformation and uncertainty - Victoria Times Colonist.
“Our official policy is that any writer who publishes content, whether AI-assisted or not, is responsible for every single word.”
The proliferation of “Editorial Staff” as the byline makes me doubt this. Signing your work would at least give the appearance that we’re reading from a human rather than something ChatGPT barfed.
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This BS would be hilarious were it not so earnest. Its grasping self-justification shrieks desperation.
Audiences will vote and those providers who know how corrosive AI is to journalism will have the courage to abandon it. They will retain readership and the advertisers who covet them. Those who choose to save money with AI ( codified plagiarism) will watch from the sidelines.
I’m not staying with AVWEB.
Way to ruin AVweb. Last week it was still great. This week it is a crappy rag.
The choppy, bullet style of the article was annoying because it betrays a lack of ability to write a coherent narrative. As an old guy who has done some professional writing and editing, I am very unclear on what IS an AI-generated article, but apparently the mellifluous of the Paul Bertorellis is a thing of the past. How about a comparative example of a non-AI writeup next to an AI-piece of journalism so we can actually see the difference?
For those of us who do writing on any sort of professional level, a well written piece, whether it be prose, poetry, a science article for a journal, a lengthy and detailed grant application, or a news article for a news outlet like yours, is a piece of art, of self expression that shows who and what we are. Replacing human writers who write by traditional means with those who are forced to use AI is akin museums insisting they will no longer display works of art not created at least in part by AI. I do not argue that AI has potential to help writers, but AI should be used only as a tool by the writers, and at the writers discretion. The writer, like any artist, must always be the PIC of the project with the discretion to use the tools at his/her disposal as they wish.
Now as for the second elephant in the room, firing Russ, Russ made your magazine what it is today. You were standing on the shoulders of a giant and you decided to kill the giant last week. I’ve been an AvWeb reader for nearly 30 years and remember the days before email had pictures, and when AvWeb was a once weekly, text only, newsletter and the only such aviation newsletter available. It was an amazing newsletter, so much so that every single aviation alphabet group eventually COPIED AvWeb trying to offer their own version. Despite this massive proliferation in competition, AvWeb held strong. Why? The journalism in AvWeb was just plain BETTER than in the alphabet knock offs. Through nearly all of that, Russ was their as your PIC making sure that AvWeb held strong and stayed better than the others.
To fire Russ, not only is massively detrimental to the future of your magazine but demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding the roots of your magazine and why readers still prefer your newsletter to the multitude of others that the alphabets bombard our inboxes with every day. To say this move was short sighted, is grossly understating the true situation you have placed yourself in.
Helen