We’ve updated our Editorial Policies and Disclaimer page to reflect something that’s very important to us. AI is scaring many people — especially journalists and creatives. We do much reporting on AI. We’ve also used it to supplement our journalists for several years even before the pandemic. Today, feel it’s very important to make disclosures about how we’re using it. You can head to the page in the hyperlink above or you can take a look at the added changes below.
Use of AI in Editorial Practices
The Phoblographer has looked at the world of independent journalism in the world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and believes that we should transparently disclose our use of AI in our everyday editorial practices.
Our policies are simple: we use AI to supplement what humans do, not to replace.
Much of our reporting is done involving the ethical questions around AI in photography. This includes using it to help photographers with autofocus features, such as with wildlife, birds, athletes, and vehicles. In many situations, we find that AI is very helpful, especially for those who are visually impaired. Our entire Editorial team wears glasses that help them see better, and our Editor in Chief/Founder is legally blind. AI within cameras helps our staff create photos within our testing and tutorials.
In our various interviews with photographers, we tend to ask them about their thoughts on AI. These opinions are solely theirs, and we present them to you to provide different sides and thought processes on the matter.
We, first and foremost, do not use AI to replace our journalists. Instead, we use it to augment what they do. Depending on when this is read, it may include:
- Headline generation – where the journalist is suggested what sort of headline might work better than the other. We choose whether or not to take the AI’s suggestions. A human journalist and a human editor work on the headlines. We create separate headlines for social media, SEO, and the website. AI makes suggestions to us. Sometimes we lean in line with what the AI suggests, while at other times we do not.
- SEO practices – there are several platforms using AI that make suggestions based on databases of what will work for page ranking. We use these for certain articles but abide but our internal journalistic ethics and policies for most of these decisions. We do not work to cater articles specifically to Google algorithms as we feel that this is often pandering to misinformation. We use this in conjunction with an outside consulting service where we work with humans on doing this.
- Copyediting – The Phoblographer has employed copy editors in the past for editing on many of our articles. In some sponsored series’, we’ve done this with editors who have always worked to provide restructuring to pieces. All of the site’s journalists are equipped with copy-editing AI that helps them make their articles read better according to its own standards. We choose whether or not to use its suggestions and edits. At least two humans work with the AI on providing edits to the articles after it is written.
Much of how we use AI is standard within the entire industry. However, we’re a smaller business and do not have the resources of much larger publications. Despite this, we have a big impact.
The Phoblographer does not use AI in the full creation of our reviews, news, opinions, product recommendation features, interviews, or tutorials.