A follow-up from the perspective of the Media Party on the scenarios that were thought up in the scenario planning workshop that started in Italy
In the workshop, we aimed to explore the future of journalism. Each group was given two driving forces that presented a different world from the current one in terms of journalism and communication. The workshop was offered at Media Party Buenos Aires 2024 by Sonia Jalfin with the mentorship from Mariano Blejman, Sebastián Hacher, Pablo Pérez De Angeli, Paula Miraglia and Michael Moss. All the mentors participated already at AI in Journalism Futures workshop organized by Open Society Foundations in Italy in April. Once scenarios were built by teams, they were asked to write a “prompt” on how those scenarios could look like. It tooked 1.30hrs to create them. Here they are the result!
Workshop on the event’s agenda
- A follow-up from the perspective of the Media Party on the scenarios that were thought up in the scenario planning workshop that started in Italy
- In the workshop, we aimed to explore the future of journalism. Each group was given two driving forces that presented a different world from the current one in terms of journalism and communication. The workshop was offered at Media Party Buenos Aires 2024 by Sonia Jalfin with the mentorship from Mariano Blejman, Sebastián Hacher, Pablo Pérez De Angeli, Paula Miraglia and Michael Moss. All the mentors participated already at AI in Journalism Futures workshop organized by Open Society Foundations in Italy in April. Once scenarios were built by teams, they were asked to write a “prompt” on how those scenarios could look like. It tooked 1.30hrs to create them. Here they are the result!
Trigger questions
- Are there journalists in this world? If yes, what characteristics do they have? What is a typical workday like for them? If not, what professionals or machines replace them?
- You are in a democracy: How do citizens get informed before an election? How does this impact the candidates and the electoral process?
- Are there third-sector organizations that influence the debate? If yes, what characteristics do they have? How do they manage to exert influence? If not, what types of organizations or machines replace them?
Transcripts of the final group presentations:
These are faithful and unedited translations of what each group presented in the workshop. The images accompanying the text were created by the participants with AI tools, using their scenarios as prompts.
Group 1
Driving forces:
- Personalization increases to extreme levels.
- The monopolistic power of big tech companies becomes even stronger.
What we decided is that journalists will be somewhat marginalized, like troubadours wandering through the town. Because to us, a journalist is someone who searches for the truth in a world that is on the brink of collapse. In this scenario, that’s what a journalist will be, because we also imagine that people will become overwhelmed, that trends will be like: ‘I’m going to ditch my phone’ or ‘I’m going to give up whatever keeps me hyperconnected and retreat to nature to smell the grass.’
In that context, journalists will be like these troubadours who still seek the truth, tell stories, ask philosophical questions, and return to the basics. We were a bit optimistic.
For the second question, we thought that democracy would see the increasing prominence of influencers and social networks, or whatever exists at that time, and that it would go in that direction. Things will become more fragmented; communities will become more digital, and there will no longer be a sense of belonging to, for example, being “Argentinian” or “vegan.” My community might be a Chinese person, and so on; it will become more atomized.
We also discussed how this will impact politicians over time. They will start using data, strong data, to fragment themselves based on what their potential supporters think. They will become more professional at this, and obviously, they will also become ‘influencers,’ so to speak, intensifying that aspect.
And lastly, we believe that social activism will indeed persist and expand because these same tools and technologies will help activists have more impact and reach.
Here, we are dealing with the reality that the power of these technologies will be monopolistic, so we were asking: What happens if a social organization wants to promote its cause or voice but gets censored by these monopolistic powers? We said that within technology, there is always this counter-hegemony that can capture those communities wanting to express something.
Group 2
Driving forces:
- Significant advancements are recorded in AI capabilities and the quality of its outputs.
- There is an increase in the use of AI tools by malicious actors to manipulate society.
These journalists mostly work freelance, and there will be two types of journalists. There are those who work purely for corporations seeking to divide audiences, and then there are those who pursue a different type of journalism, which is more freelance and involves working for NGOs, etc.
Additionally, people will get informed in only two ways in regards to elections: in one, information will be pushed to them; and in another, they will be able to write some sort of chat code, which will then show them which candidates meet their criteria.
Furthermore, regulatory bodies will emerge (which we trust) to decide what the candidate proposes and what the AI suggests. These regulators will act like fact-checkers, telling you how truthful the claims are and whether the candidates truly meet the conditions you want in order to vote for them. In broad terms, they will tell you who to vote for.
Group 3
Driving forces:
- AI agents and assistants proliferate.
- Disinformation destabilizes society and/or causes major incidents.
…an initial intelligence is generated, customized by specific algorithms for that person. Behind this, there are journalists who establish the criteria, parameters, and prompts that generate this customized information. At the same time, there are still human journalists who provide information, convey emotions, and more.
There are two versions here. There is the Premium version for those willing to pay for it, and the Guerrilla version, where journalists work with fewer resources and self-management to counter all of this.
Regarding electoral information, we believe that these personalized information systems increasingly reinforce each person’s bubble, fully confirming their biases. However, in the future, these different bubbles may start to intersect. Rather than “polarization,” there is a sort of extreme micro-segmentation where bubbles begin to overlap and clash with each other.
The impact on elections is that content is created and produced to support candidates’ positions, and candidates are constantly monitoring these things socially to adjust their strategies.
The third sector still effectively exists and continues to promote spaces where these discussions take place: Hack Hackers, Media Parties, and similar venues.
And we mentioned that all of this is happening with the development of artificial intelligence occurring in a practically wild way, because no regulation that is attempted to be put in place is effective in trying to control that development.
Group 4
Driving forces:
- There is better curation (both automated and manual).
- Audiences return to consuming local and community-driven content.
We were unsure because it’s quite an optimistic scenario, but based on this, we concluded that algorithms consolidate as effective managers of audience demand because curation works better. Also, creators, journalists, and opinion leaders gain more prominence than traditional media outlets. We had a lot of discussions about the role or position of the media. Since individual people have more relevance, what happens to the media?
Regarding politics, candidates are closer to the real demands of citizens because, firstly, citizens have better information systems, and secondly, they are much more involved in local content. We also noted that conversational systems based on AI is proliferating everywhere (this aligns with the other groups). These systems are better curated and promote a better democratic system because they provide accurate information regarding public matters, ensuring citizens are better informed.
We also had extensive discussions about third-sector organizations, but we couldn’t reach an agreement. Someone suggested that perhaps their role might be to oversee or design these information systems. Even though these systems are already better curated in our scenario, they would still have that role.
Group 5
Driving forces:
- Greater efficiency is recorded in newsrooms.
- AI agents and assistants easily manipulate society’s behavior.
In Group 5, in fifteen years, newsrooms will become more efficient. AI agents and assistants easily manipulate society’s behavior, leading to more polarization and everything we already know. However, what might be different is that we believe journalists will continue to resist. And perhaps the way journalism will persist is that there will always be a group of people who want to seek the truth.
To search for the truth, there is this consortium of journalists that is very diverse and distinct, advocating for transparency as their core value. People trust them despite the prevalence of ‘I-fakes,’ and what will happen, in a way, is that if ‘everything is a lie,’ then everyone stops believing in everything. But some people become relevant, and we believe that thanks to having a diverse group, a group that fact-checks each other with peer review, journalism might still have a place.
Group 6
Driving forces:
- AI systems that mediate between the audience and the content proliferate.
- People find it difficult to differentiate between what is authentic and what is misinformation
We agreed that journalists will continue to exist because we need them, and they will have some main functions: to act as guardians or provide alerts about what is authentic and what is not regarding information. Additionally, there will be a more disconnected world, apart from the connected one.
Regarding the second prompt, we imagined how people would be informed about elections through campaigns in video games, and we created the figure of the ‘algorithm pointer’ who will be guiding the votes within these platforms. Candidates will use push notifications on all platforms and will also have their own avatars.
As for whether there will be an update in the third sector, most people think there will be.
