The New York Times editorial team now uses AI tools

The New York Times will begin using AI tools such as ChatGPT’s API internally for its editorial team and products. The tools will assist in crafting SEO headlines, generating summaries, and even writing code. 

In an internal message, the American newspaper announced to its employees the launch of a new internal AI tool named Echo. In addition, the Times opened AI training sessions to its newsroom staff, according to Semafor.

The Times’ staff will access a suite of AI tools 

The internal AI tool, Echo, is a summarization tool that will assist the Times’ editorial team in compressing articles and other types of content. ChatGPT’s API will be accessible through the company’s business account only after approval from the legal team is received. 

Echo and ChatGPT’s API aren’t the only AI tools that the Times’ staff will have access to. The internal message announced the inclusion of the Times’ ChatExplorer, Vertex AI for product development, GitHub Copilot assistant for coding, NotebookLM, and other Amazon AI products.

“We view the technology not as some magical solution but as a powerful tool that, like many technological advances before it, may be used in service of our mission.” said the New York Times company in a post last year. 

The internal message stated that editors can use AI tools to brainstorm ideas, ask questions about a report, research, and analyze the newspaper’s documents and images. One of the training videos encouraged reporters to use AI to create a list of questions to be used in an interview with a startup CEO, for example. The American newspaper will utilize AI tools to write quote cards, social copy, faqs, and even create fun quizzes. 

Other training documents and guidelines showed examples of AI use cases in journalism. The documents listed prompts that could help the Times’ staff to revise content, summarize it, and generate optimized headlines.

The New York Times is against copyright infringement

Even though the Times has changed its stance against AI tools, the newspaper has advised its staff not to rely heavily on AI for drafting or revising content. Additionally, the Times advised its editorial staff to avoid feeding third-party copyrighted content or confidential information into AI tools. Overcoming paywalls using AI and publishing artificial intelligence-generated images or videos is strictly prohibited unless it’s required for technology demonstration purposes. 

The New York Times stated that some unapproved AI tools are still unsafe and if used wrongly, could deny the newspaper’s right to protect its sources and content.

The giant newspaper has been working over the past 12 months with an internal pilot group to discover how AI could be implemented in the newsroom.

Some employees are skeptical about the use of artificial intelligence and feel that it could promote laziness, reduce creativity, hallucinate, or even produce incorrect information. 

After the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, the New York Times filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. The Times alleges that OpenAI used its articles to train ChatGPT without permission and is seeking billions in damages. 

The New York Times managed to identify its articles inside OpenAI’s training data after a lengthy investigation. However, an OpenAI engineer erased the data and claimed that it was an accident. 

As of today, the New York Times’ lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft remains ongoing.