Google is working with news publishers to make a new AI-powered tool to help writers gather information and write their stories, the company said Thursday.
The project was first talked about by The New York Times, which is trying the new product along with The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.
The story said that the tool, which was called “Genesis” inside the company, was still in its early testing stages but was impressive enough for some news executives to find it “unsettling” when they saw what it could do.
In a statement, a Google spokeswoman said, “In partnership with news publishers, especially smaller ones, we’re just starting to think about how we might be able to use AI to help their journalists do their jobs.”
She also said, “Quite simply, these tools are not meant to replace the important work that journalists do when they report, write, and check the facts of their articles, and they can’t.”
The company said that the tool would be like a co-pilot for reporters and editors because it would give them choices for headlines and different writing styles.
The Google project comes after news of a partnership between OpenAI and The Associated Press, in which the creator of ChatGPT was given permission to train AI using AP’s records going back to 1985.
The AP has been using other kinds of AI for almost a decade, such as to automate corporate earnings reports and sum up some sports events.
When ChatGPT came out last year, it caused a lot of worry in the news business because it could write clearly and quickly on complicated topics from a simple prompt.
ChatGPT came out in November, the smart AI-powered chatbot has taken the world by storm.