Ep 33 - AI Leader - Media Watch - ABC News & Headlines – Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Local advocacy groups are calling to overhaul Moonee Valley’s purple glass bins, citing added costs, space constraints and infrequent collection schedules. 

Oh dear, the bins were but a proposal, not a reality. 

Moonee Valley City Council is spending ratepayer money defending flood claims instead of fixing the drains that caused the flooding in the first place, a resident has alleged.

During the meeting, Rae Berge questioned whether the council and its lawyers were complying with legal requirements to keep litigation costs reasonable and proportionate.

“Every dollar spent defending these claims is a dollar not spent fixing the drainage failures causing them,” Ms Berge said.

I was in my green-and-yellow rubber gloves and cleaning my bathroom.

In fact, Rae had sent in her questions ahead of the meeting.

Deputy Mayor Phil Burn and councillor John Barnes both briefly exited the chamber during the public question session. 

Ummm … I just went to the dunny, and I think John went after me. 

So, how have standards fallen so low?

News Corp has turned, of course, to artificial intelligence, entrusting it to read council papers and turn out accurate, balanced, and fair copy, which it seems is going just as well as its illustrations which feature a protester missing his head, a tsunami rearing, for no obvious reason, over a local gym, and not-inconsistent-at-all depictions of Hepburn’s charming deputy mayor Shirley Cornish.

These and other Herald Sun contributions carrying the all-important rider.

This project treats both journalists and readers with contempt. If a human reporter began churning out the quality of these so-called stories … they would lose their job … this project sends the message that we actually don't care. 

… there will be no impact on existing roles … we remain committed to maintaining the highest standards for everything we publish and any errors brought to our attention will be clarified or corrected.

To the company’s credit, these and other errors have indeed been corrected.

News is not alone in experimenting with AI, but it has crossed a Rubicon others have not, outsourcing holus-bolus to a regurgitation machine the work of a council reporter.

Because until a computer can listen to an aggrieved ratepayer, doorstop a developer, and document the evasions of an alderman, this experiment risks putting a bomb under what little trust people still feel in their local paper.

Read a statement from a spokesman for News Corp here.