Television Happy is the first broadcaster with a license for national coverage that introduced the use of VI presenters in Serbia
“Good morning, dear viewers. This is the most important news Happy Television, my name is Bojana Filipović.”
That’s how the news of television that in Serbia has a permit for national coverage. “Bojana Filipović” led them this Wednesday, June 25, in seven sessions, and the day before that, the presenter was “Marko Popović”.
And hardly anyone, except the faithful viewers of that one media, knew about them – until the Association of Journalists of Serbia (UNS) announced that they were presenters generated by artificial intelligence (AI), writes DW.
Five important components
“When it comes to the use of artificial intelligence in journalism, we have to separate the technological component, content, regulation, but also the union component, because a large number of journalists and media workers will lose their jobs,” Zoran Gavrilović, executive director of the Bureau for Social Research (BIRODI), which also deals with media monitoring in Serbia, told DW.
Gavcrilović adds that the fifth important element regarding the use of artificial intelligence in journalism is “what the audience says about it”.
Artificial intelligence, as he indicates, provides a series of technical possibilities that, if used in an adequate way, can be useful in journalism. But their abuse, emphasizes Gavrilović, “retaliates to journalism as a profession.”
Viewers must be informed
UNS stated in a statement that Happy-television viewers “were not informed that, instead of the presenters they previously watched on small screens, they are now watching digitally generated creations.”
Serbia, UNS reminds, has not adopted the Law on Artificial Intelligence, but “according to the Act on Artificial Intelligence of the European Union, with which domestic legislation will be harmonized, viewers must be informed when content is generated or presented with the help of artificial intelligence.”
Gavrilović explains that regulation implies the adoption of regulations when, how and under what conditions artificial intelligence can be used and that, as he states, a “transparent structure” is mandatory.
The author must remain human.
BIRODI’s director says that when it comes to content, artificial intelligence can be used to “do some routine things faster.”
“But that too must be under human supervision. The authorship must remain entirely on the side of man. Man is responsible for the production of content with his expertise, and artificial intelligence has nothing to look for in that,” emphasizes Gavrilović.
Retired professor of the Faculty of Political Sciences, Rade Veljanovski, agrees that new technologies “can help to work faster and more efficiently and, above all, to get data faster.”
“But it’s not the same when artificial intelligence is used to design a program schedule, sort content, broadcast for several hours from a computer, find information sources and compare them, or to create content that is offered to the audience,” Veljanovski points out.
He specifies that “such contents, in the form of text, tone, image or visual personality, are problematic from the point of view of professionalism, ethics and elementary credibility”.
He adds that he is not surprised that (according to the media) “artificially synthesized presenters” are also used in China.
“That country is technologically developed, but its journalism is not at a high level of professionalism and ethics. There are other countries that work like that, but they are mostly environments with insufficiently democratic media systems,” says Veljanovski.
Propaganda television and artificial presenters
Television Happy is the first broadcaster with a license for national coverage that introduced the use of VI presenters in Serbia. We are talking about television, which is cited by a large part of the public, as well as among media experts, as an example of media with a pronounced propaganda and tabloid editorial policy.
“If for years that television has not shied away from consciously producing tabloid content, publishing hate speech, including war criminals, permanently apologizing for an undemocratic government, then it’s no wonder that it also reached out to virtual presenters,” assesses Veljanovski.
He adds that it is understandable that the largest journalist associations (UNS and NUNS) condemned such a move by Happy-television.
“It is misleading, although in a paradoxical way, such content, although unprofessional, can be better or less harmful than the content communicated by live journalists and presenters (of that television),” says Veljanovski.
Will we surpass China?
The question that arises is what the appearance of virtual presenters and the abuse of artificial intelligence means for the Serbian media scene, where there are not many media that are not close to the authorities. In addition, there are indications that some of them, including the television stations N1 and Nova, the newspapers Danas and Nova, and the weekly Radar, are at risk of being shut down.
“The media scene in Serbia is unfavorable in many ways. Circumstances are so bad that not even VI leaders can make them worse – although, of course, such a phenomenon is not welcome,” Veljanovski points out.
He reminds that “by attracting certain media into its fold and creating new ones, the government drastically increased the space for regime journalism and reduced the opportunities for independent, critical journalism.”
He also notes that “all the regime’s destructive moves towards the media have been exposed by domestic and foreign professional organizations, but despite this, the centers of power are not stopping in their intention to completely conquer the space of public communication and suppress any dissenting opinion.”
“In the conditions of rather weak media literacy, strengthening of authoritarianism and recklessness of the authorities, it may happen that virtual presenters become our future and that, perhaps with the help of China, we will overcome China,” Veljanovski assesses.
Artificial intelligence should only be an apprentice
Zoran Gavrilović reminds that the media can only be called “a newsroom that collects information, puts it in journalistic form and opens a dialogue that leads to solving a problem, analyzing a situation or evaluating a policy.”
“That’s why I think the concept of so-called deliberation is important (which, among other things, implies a thorough consideration and taking into account different arguments). That concept implies that public opinion researchers and journalists are a pillar. We need media that do so-called deliberation, and artificial intelligence cannot do that. Only educated journalists who are free can do it,” Gavrilović points out.
He adds that, when it comes to journalism and research, the essence “is not a war with artificial intelligence, but a transition to a higher level.”
“That is exactly deliberation, i.e. maintaining the deliberative role – the role of dialogue. This is how we will solve the issue of those who, with the help of artificial intelligence, want to change the role of the media, and on the other hand, we will preserve the dialogue without which there is no democracy. I think that this is the future and that in that case artificial intelligence will only have the role of an apprentice,” Zoran Gavrilović concludes for DW.
Source: Vreme
