{"id":12331,"date":"2024-06-14T16:33:24","date_gmt":"2024-06-14T16:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/?p=12331"},"modified":"2024-06-14T16:33:24","modified_gmt":"2024-06-14T16:33:24","slug":"early-lessons-from-10th-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/2024\/06\/14\/early-lessons-from-10th-street\/","title":{"rendered":"Early lessons from 10th Street"},"content":{"rendered":"
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About a month ago, we introduced a new feature called <\/span>The 10th Street Journal<\/span><\/a> that uses artificial intelligence to produce stories of public interest\u00a0 \u2014 articles about road construction, event announcements and holiday closures.<\/span><\/p>\n We\u2019ve noticed a few common themes in the first 36 articles we\u2019ve published:<\/span><\/p>\n 1. AI is hungry<\/span><\/p>\n Six stories we\u2019ve published mention events with food: \u201c<\/span>a welcome reception featuring hors d\u2019oeuvres<\/span><\/a>,\u201d \u201c<\/span>refreshments will be served<\/span><\/a>,\u201d \u201c<\/span>snacks will be provided<\/span><\/a>,\u201d \u201c<\/span>beer and food will be on-site for purchase<\/span><\/a>,\u201d \u201c<\/span>global food vendors<\/span><\/a>,\u201d \u201c<\/span>the ceremony, which will include dinner<\/span><\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n A <\/span>seventh<\/span><\/a> is an event <\/span>about <\/span><\/i>food.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n (This is partly because of the humans involved. We choose press releases from official sources as our inputs for the AI. Our AI has a knack for emphasizing the food.)<\/span><\/p>\n 2. AI needs an editor<\/span><\/p>\n Like a student in an Introduction to Newswriting course, AI needs editing (and sometimes, re-editing.) We\u2019ve noticed it doesn\u2019t yet have a firm grasp on AP Style, and sometimes it gets facts wrong that we need to correct. A favorite: a story about RDU\u2019s growth in the number of passengers initially referred to RDU as San Francisco International Airport.<\/span><\/p>\n We also noted that AI tends to favor starting headlines with the word \u201cDurham.\u201d Of the first 36 articles, 16 began with Durham. (We\u2019re being more careful to avoid that repetition.)<\/span><\/p>\n 3. But \u2026 10th Street produces valuable journalism<\/span><\/p>\n Most of our stories fall into one of several buckets:.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 4. We\u2019re having <\/span>fun<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n The <\/span>10th Street<\/span><\/i> name itself (a reference to a non-existent road) is a wink to the fact that we are using AI \u2013 and we\u2019re continuing to find ways to bring a fun element to the content that AI produces.<\/span> We\u2019re excited to be on the forefront of AI in journalism. We welcome your feedback (and suggestions of events \u2013 regardless of whether food will be served!).<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" About a month ago, we introduced a new feature called The 10th Street Journal that uses artificial intelligence to produce stories of public interest\u00a0 \u2014…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[269],"class_list":["post-12331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-the-9th-street-journal","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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\n<\/span>In addition to our news briefs, we also produce a <\/span>weekly AI-written newsletter<\/span><\/a> that we\u2019ve enhanced with AI-generated art. We illustrate one or two stories in each edition using images produced by DALL-E, and it\u2019s been fun to see how it interprets <\/span>a child drawing a thank you picture for the sheriff<\/span><\/a>, or the <\/span>newly renamed Coach K Highway.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n