Kivimaki: Artificial information should be feared – disinformation should be combated by open source

Finnish journalist, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) expert, Jyri Kivimaki says that AI can find use in the field of journalism and that it can be used to increase quality, especially at a time when disinformation is what needs to be fought.

While he says that “AI should not be feared but artificial information”, Kivimaki in an interview with The Geopost emphasizes that disinformation is combated by open source.

He advices the journalists of the Balkans to verify the information, in order to avoid disinformation as much as possible.

Full interview:

The Geopost: How AI is helping today’s journalism?

Kivimaki: I believe that AI is a very good tool for all journalists at the moment. There are so many things that AI can help us to be better journalists. If you think about AI as a whole, not just journalists, it can equal the skills we have. If you can’t play an instrument yourself, you can compose things with the help of AI. If you can’t draw, it can help you draw. If you have a physical disability on typing, for example, you can use AI to help you type things, to write better stories. So, if you think about journalistic wise, I think that if you think about basic writing, writing journalist, you can use AI to help you transcribe your interview text, which will save you time. You are able to analyze more interview tapes. There is no thing you have to type everything down. So, you can use as much as material as you want to. And also, you can now analyze bigger chunks of data. I have called the new AI boom a time where data is gold. And people are starting to appreciate more data. And as a journalist, I love open-source intelligence, public records, you know, we have all kinds of things we can now analyze easier. So those are probably the most interesting tools for AI at the moment for an individual journalist. And of course there are many things AI can do in the publication side, you know, recommendations and stuff like that, but let’s not go there at this time.

The Geopost: How can we use AI to fight disinformation?

Kivimaki: I think the best way to fight disinformation with AI is something that we haven’t done yet. I think we should, all media parties, all journalists, we should come together and start to think about ways, how can we show that we are giving out verified information. That’s a key thing, I think. But if I think about the basic stuff we do, then I would say the open-source intelligence is probably the one good thing that we all should do. In Finland, we are doing a lot of that, trying to verify things via public records, satellite imagery, stuff like that. There are actually really concrete evidence on that.

The Geopost: Is the AI a threat for media and journalism in this century?

Kivimaki: I think it’s a threat, but I don’t think it’s that big a threat we are all thinking about. I think that, as someone said in this event here in Florence, said that we are not afraid of the artificial intelligence, we are afraid of the artificial information, and that should be the case. It takes a lot of AI literacy, we should teach how to understand what AI, what is large language models for example. But I think that AI, when it’s in good use, it will make us better journalists, it will make people better content creators, we will have better stories. The one big threat that everybody is talking about, that there will be so much automated crap published all the time but I would say that there will be so much good stuff published soon and we don’t know where to use our time so then we need those verified good information sites where we can find it.

The Geopost: What is your message for Balkan media and journalists how to use AI for better things?

Kivimaki: I think that I would recommend focusing on the open-source intelligence, trying to verify things that are happening in this world, because so much of disinformation is being fed to us that we should try our role as a journalist is to try to verify things, try to tell people what is really going on. A widely Finnish example, we have a large borderline with Russia, we are doing a lot of open-source intelligence projects, trying to cover up what is happening on the borderline, how are Russians moving their people on their military bases, stuff like that. And of course, another actual case was a case where our journalists found out that Russia was actually taking out Mariupol kids, Ukrainian kids, and trying to teach them things about Russia, good things, and Russia is actually a very good place to be. So, and we found out through satellite imagery, security cameras, how Russia is moving those kids to training camps where they are teaching Russia things. I’m not saying they are brainwashing, but you know, you get the idea. And that’s all because of open-source intelligence. So, use AI to analyze big data sets, use new kinds of data sets, set it into the data channels. That is one recommendation.

/The Geopost