From a CJR story by Mathew Ingram headlined “Is AI a partner for journalism or a disaster?”:

In November, OpenAI, a company that develops artificial-intelligence software, released ChatGPT, a program that allows users to ask conversational-style questions and receive essay-style answers. It soon became clear that, unlike with some earlier chat-software programs, this one could, in a matter of seconds, generate content that was both readable and reasonably intelligent. Unsurprisingly, this caused consternation among humans who get paid to generate content that is readable and intelligent. And their concerns are reasonable: companies that make money creating such content may well see AI-powered tools as an opportunity to cut costs and increase profits, two things that companies that make money from content like to do.

From a Jack Shafer Fourth Estate column on politico.com headlined “Why I Welcome Our Future AI Overlords”:

A minor panic surged through newsrooms as pundits began their speculation that ChatGPT, the speed-writing, new-fangled AI-powered text-generator, might start replacing human journalists. The collective newsroom blood pressure receded, however, when Futurism reported that the tech news site CNET was already using artificial intelligence to compose news stories but that in many cases, the stories were 1) inaccurate; 2) plagiarized; and 3) dull. ChatGPT might still be coming for our jobs, the journos sighed, but not this year or next, and soon returned to their fidget spinners, wastebasket basketball games and other professional procrastination devices.