The CEO of the news site explained how they will use the OpenAI tool. Shares rose after the announcement.
The online medium BuzzFeed He assured that he will start using ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence of OpenAI, to improve his questionnaires (quiz) and customize some content for his audiences. The announcement comes after Microsoft announced a $10 billion investment in the AI tool.
In a memorandum Chief Executive Jonah Peretti said to staff dispatched Thursday morning that he intends for AI to play a bigger role in the company’s business and publishing operations this year.
“Our industry will expand beyond AI-powered (source) curation, to AI-powered (content) creation,” says Peretti. “AI ushers in a new era of creativity, where creative humans like us play a key role by bringing ideas, cultural currency, inspired cues, IP and formats to life using the newest technologies.”
In one example cited by the Wall Street Journal, which broke the news, artificial intelligence AI could be used to generate personalized romantic comedy pitches for readers.
They would be asked a series of questions, including personal information (such as “name an endearing flaw” and “pick a favorite rom-com trope”), which would be used to generate a shareable result.
Peretti expects AI to help in the creative process and improve the company’s content, while humans play the role of providing ideas, “cultural capital” and “inspired cues,” he wrote in his memo.
In 15 years, he wrote, he hopes AI and data will help “create, personalize, and animate the content itself,” rather than just curate existing content.
BuzzFeed, which went public in late 2021 through a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company, last year shrank from news in a bid to make the business profitable and said it would double its creator network. Facebook’s parent company Meta is paying the company millions of dollars to help generate creator content for Facebook and Instagram.
BuzzFeed stocks they doubled in value on Thursday, closing at $2.09.
Doubts about the proposal
“The site remains focused on the human generated journalism in his newsroom,” a spokeswoman said Thursday. After receiving Peretti’s memo, several employees on Thursday raised concerns and asked him questions on Slack about the implications of the move.
A staffer asked how they planned to circumvent the “unavoidable legal issues” surrounding visual work created by the company’s illustrators, photographers and art directors, as well as content protected by US copyright, according to screenshots. Slack channel screen that were reviewed by the Journal.
“We have experimented in the past with AI-generated imagery and we acknowledge these concerns and we take them seriouslyPeretti wrote in response, according to the BuzzFeed spokesperson.
He also said that the initial step in BuzzFeed’s plan was to use AI for text-based products, but that was left under review.
Other employees questioned whether the use of AI technology would lead to a reduction in the workforce and raised concerns about verification of AI-generated content.
In response, Peretti wrote that the tools are “an opportunity to make full-time employees be more efficient and creativenot a workforce reduction strategy,” the spokeswoman said.
Peretti told staff during the meeting that digital media companies that choose to rely on AI solely to save costs and produce low-quality content were making terrible use of the technology, according to the spokeswoman. “That’s not BuzzFeed’s approach,” Peretti said, noting that there were much more creative ways to use AI.
“I think the news, for good reason, tends to be the most conservative when it comes to embracing new technology,” Peretti told the staff.
BuzzFeed’s move comes as ChatGPT, the lab’s new chatbot technology, Open AI researchgenerates excitement among consumers and companies, and after a million-dollar investment from Microsoft.
