The San Mateo Daily Journal and AI

I know others may not see it that way, and that’s OK. But for our purposes, here at the Daily Journal, we believe those who have thoughts should put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, as process those thoughts themselves.

Submitting a set of thoughts to AI and asking it to come up with an essay from it may come across as nice and easy, but there is something about the writing process that forces the writer to fully think through their ideas on their own. In writing, an idea could arise, or there could be a completely different point of view that comes through in arguing for a particular point of view. Feeding an idea into a machine will not do that. It is limited in scope.

There are many reasons for someone to think about submitting a letter to the editor or a guest perspective. More often than not, it is because they have a particular point of view they seek to convey and to convince others to think the same way while also spurring them into action. If you haven’t mastered the “why” to your piece, it’s likely you won’t spur anyone to anything but you might cause those who think similar to continue to think that way. In short, you’ve done nothing.

So the idea of not using AI in Daily Journal submissions is really rooted in the concept that it is important to go through the writing process yourself as a way to fully flesh out the ideas that come from you. As with anything, it’s OK to bounce ideas off others as that’s a way to get new ideas or figure out new thoughts.

This is the essential concept behind why AI-assisted writing is not allowed in academic settings. Writing itself is an extension of a thought process, and building and growing ideas through that process is essential to learning — and that should not be just reserved for school, but rather throughout a lifetime.

We are also available to you, our readers, to help with your work as well. Within reason, of course. But you can also look toward your own community for feedback. Friends, colleagues and family know you and can help build your ideas. This is a very human thing to do, and builds immediate community connections as well.

Some news agencies are also using AI in their reporting. We believe it’s OK for them, as long as it is labeled as such. The challenges for news agencies are myriad right now, and some have to do what they have to do to survive. However, it appears to us at least to be a poor substitute for actual reporting in which the reporter watches and contextualizes civic action rather than just regurgitating minutes in bullet form. As far as understanding specific actions from a government meeting, sure, but putting it into larger context and humanizing the language is the job of a reporter. Also, there are times a discussion could yield a further story. As an example I give you a priority discussion from the San Bruno City Council in which uneven parking enforcement was addressed. While that might be a quick line item in a larger AI meeting minutes report, it also merited further investigation by our reporter.

Besides, we are still humans. We bring that element to our reporting. It’s not simply conveying information, it’s delivering it in a way to makes sense, that provides meaning and advances community conversations.

So AI is not for us here at the Daily Journal. At least not yet, because it doesn’t make sense for our overall purpose here, which is not just sharing information but making sense of it. AI is a pretty good tool overall, just not for us here in our newsroom.