Review, reporting and opinion by human Mathew Carr

A panel in London debated whether AI companies were assassins or saviors.

Few argued that journalists would come away from their fight with AI unscathed.

Here’s a summary of the most interesting arguments, mostly in the order in which they were made on the night.

Bullet point style:

Ghani said democracy was at risk of being killed by AI.

“China is already ahead of the curve,” on AI ….she indicated that country does not share “our democratic values.”

Hmmmm (see below).

Blackhurst said 10s of thousands of journalists are losing their jobs. (Their jobs have been assassinated)

He said local newspapers and radio stations have been assassinated and council and judicial decisions are not being scrutinised like they once were.

The human skills of aggregation and filtration are being killed off, he said.

“Make it fair” campaign is designed to protect creatives.

Elon Musk (tech bro AI mogul, conflicted US “public servant”) probably has no trouble feeding his kids but I need to feed mine too, Blackhurst said.

A lot of people don’t research deeply and so insights will become shallower, Loffhagen said. So deep knowledge is being killed off.

Posing the question of AI as assassin vs savior is part of the problem….things are never all good or all bad, Tomchak said.

AI is killing off attention on the real existential crisis — climate change, she said.

Social media companies are already more powerful than governments, she said.

AIs maybe should be treated like animals who we collaborate with, she said.

There is unprecedented amount of money being spent on AI development, Knowles said.

AI is a threat to Google, he said…citing 80 billion link clicks a month (unverified). See notes below. Correct.

AI will free up journalists to do better work, saving them time, he said. ***This was one of the few arguments for AI as a savior***…refuted below.

India PM Modi placed an avatar of himself in multiple locations during India’s election, Ghani said. (He didn’t need to physically travel to places in order to “appear”.)

Too few people already take part in democracy and that might get worse, she said. They are disengaged.

EU AI law stifled competition, Knowles said.

No one is defining why human-led journalism is important….which increases the risk no one will fight for it, Loffhagen said. (One of my favorite points of the night)

“I don’t think the proprietors (of media companies) are going to provide a solution,” Blackhurst said. “We are beyond that.”

“Original content is expensive. Investigations are fraught. Lawyers intervene” and pull the stories at the last minute, he said.

Blackhurst said media companies won’t be freeing their journalists up because of AI …they will be firing them. (Refuting Knowles point, above)

“We now have more PRs than journalists.”

Big tech, owned by billionaires, is not a friend of journalists, Blackhurst said…indicating the assassin in this debate is not really China or countries or governments or some “technology” … but the billionaires (actual people) are the real assassins.

Billionaires try to avoid scrutiny….so they are unlikely to support better, stronger journalism (CarrZee). I’m open to evidence to the contrary.

Substack has counterbalanced the decline of local journalism to some extent, Loffhagen said.

Smoothed early Tuesday morning.

Notes

Chat GPT:

Yes, AI is both an opportunity and a threat to Google. While Google is a leader in AI development, the rise of generative AI, particularly AI-powered search and assistants, could disrupt its core business model. Here’s how:

1. AI-Powered Search Disrupting Google’s Ad Revenue

• Google’s primary revenue source is search ads. If AI chatbots (like ChatGPT or Perplexity AI) provide direct answers instead of sending users to websites, fewer people may click on Google ads, reducing its revenue.

• Microsoft has integrated AI into Bing (via OpenAI), making search more conversational, directly challenging Google Search.

2. AI-Powered Assistants Reducing Search Dependency

• Virtual assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are becoming better at answering questions, potentially replacing traditional search engines for some users.

• If AI assistants dominate information retrieval, fewer people may use Google search.

3. The Rise of AI Content Generators

• Google depends on external websites for search results. If AI tools generate their own content (articles, summaries, reports), users might not need to visit websites anymore.

• This threatens Google’s SEO-based ecosystem, reducing traffic to publishers and Google’s ad network.

4. Google’s Own AI Ambitions

• Google has deep AI expertise with DeepMind, Gemini (Bard), and Google Cloud AI.

• It is integrating AI into Search Generative Experience (SGE), Google Assistant, and Workspace tools (Docs, Gmail, etc.).

• However, if Google fully embraces AI search, it risks cannibalizing its ad revenue—one of its biggest dilemmas.

5. Competition from AI-First Companies

• Startups like OpenAI (ChatGPT), Anthropic (Claude), and Perplexity AI are gaining traction in AI-driven search and assistants.

• If alternative AI platforms gain mass adoption, Google could lose its dominance in online search.

Conclusion: Threat, But Not an Immediate Existential Risk

• Google remains a powerful player with massive AI resources and dominance in the search market.

• However, AI is forcing Google to adapt quickly or risk losing market share to AI-native competitors.

• The real risk is whether Google can monetize AI search as effectively as traditional search ads.

Do you think Google will successfully transition, or could AI actually dethrone it?

———

Google plays a significant role in directing traffic to news websites, primarily through its platforms like Google Search and Google Discover. While exact figures for the total number of clicks Google directs to news sites monthly aren’t publicly disclosed, several insights highlight its impact:

• Google Discover’s Growing Influence: For some publishers, Google Discover has become a major traffic source. For instance, Reach plc reported that Discover is now their largest referrer, surpassing traditional search. 

• Search vs. Social Referrals: Data from 546 UK and US news sites over five years indicates that search engines, dominated by Google, have increased their share of referrals to news sites from 33% to 35%. In contrast, social media referrals have declined from 32% to 30%. 

• Global Referral Traffic: A study analyzing web traffic referrals found that Google is responsible for approximately 63.4% of all web traffic referrals in the U.S., underscoring its dominance in directing users to various websites, including news outlets. 

While these insights underscore Google’s pivotal role in news traffic referrals, precise monthly click figures remain proprietary to Google and are not publicly available.