I’m both old and I work in the news industry. So when I think of “news” it usually feels like something that comes from an organization that specializes in distribution and sometimes research/fact-checking of current events. You know: like a newspaper, a website, a TV show/network.
Elon Musk thinks the news is something different: it’s what people are talking about on the service formerly known as Twitter.
And that’s the vision he’s using to create a news service at X, the company formerly known as Twitter, using Grok, its homegrown AI chatbot.
Musk’s idea, he told journalist Alex Kantrowitz, is that the best way to learn about current events is not to read/listen to the news, but to listen to what people are saying. say about current affairs.
The conversation about Musk said Grok would not look directly at the text of the article and would instead rely solely on social posts. “That sums up what people say about X,” he said.
And just to make it clear, a Musk employee confirms to Kantrowitz that these are indeed his marching orders: “Igor Babuschkin, a technical staffer working at Musk’s xAI, said his team is focused on “making people understand Grok the news only from what is ‘posted on X.'”
Look. I know that “understanding the news solely from what is posted on the company formerly known as Twitter” is not going to reassure many of us. Certainly not in the Elon Musk era of the company formerly known as Twitter.
But… do I like it? In theory?
Let’s be clear: understand what’s happening in the world based on uniquely about what people say on X, or any other social media platform, is not a good idea. But commenting on what people say about what’s happening in the world isn’t a bad idea. Maybe even a good one?
And, more concretely: this kind of consumption of comments actually East the way many people learn about what’s going on in the world. Even if you are a serious consumer of information (thanks!), most of the information you receive is probably is not it directly from a primary news source, but from someone who has aggregated or at least repeated what a primary news source says. It’s a matter of basic economics: it is very expensive to go out and find news on your own, and very inexpensive to talk about things that are in the news, or to present and present information obtained by other people. This is why even large, well-funded news channels – like CNN for example – spend most of their time discussing and debating things we’ve already heard about, instead of introducing you to new things.
And while there are many use cases where generative AI doesn’t do a great job, it seems very useful for summarizing existing information, especially when it’s already been entered. So why not summarize the comments?
What you need to know: Yes, you would be a fool to rely on an AI machine run by Elon Musk for factual information.
But to be fair, this caveat currently applies to any AI machine. Last week, for example, I asked Google’s AI (not its much-maligned Gemini but the one Google has started putting into some people’s phones whether they like it or not) a question about Second World War and the Tower of London and she answered me with complete confidence. an answer about Big Ben instead.
So suppose that any of them generative AI answer about Nothing should best be considered a starting point – something that may or may not be right and certainly requires fact-checking before using it to inform a consequential decision. Just like you should if your source was “what I read on the internet” or “what I heard on a podcast.”
Which brings us to the other problem with Musk’s solution, as Kantrowitz points out: At the moment, Musk is barely trying to tell you about the original source of the information he summarizes.
When I asked Grok to “tell me about Elon Musk’s plan to summarize the news using grok,” it provided me with a very compelling summary of Kantrowitz’s article. But to find the source of this summary, I had to scroll down the entry, then to the right, past other people’s tweets containing no information about Musk’s plans, to find the Kantrowitz tweet linking to his original article.
This is a bad way to give people access to more information. This is also a bad thing for publishers who are still making efforts – like Kantrowitz – to find new information. This means that Musk benefits from their work and they get almost nothing – barely a connection – in return.
Alas, I think this is the direction we are heading with AI in general: despite efforts to negotiate or sue Big AI, most publishers are heading toward a world where Big AI engines provide increasingly complete answers to queries and provide little incentive for users to go to original sources to find out more.
It would certainly be nice if Grok gave Kantrowitz more billing when he provides an answer, and I think he may or may not achieve that, depending on Musk’s feelings at any given moment.
But any media company that doesn’t have a plan, or at least hope, for covering AI news – beyond wanting a check or a court order – will be way in difficulty.
businessinsider
