Anna Betts, The Guardian; Los Angeles Times owner says articles will use AI meter to show sources’ ‘bias’
"Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner of the Los Angeles Times, has announced plans to incorporate an artificial intelligence-powered “bias meter” into the newspaper’s coverage.
Soon-Shiong, the biotech billionaire who bought the Los Angeles Times in 2018, made the comments on a podcast hosted by conservative commentator Scott Jennings, who is soon joining the LA Times editorial board.
The proposed move is the latest controversy to rock the newspaper which has suffered a wave of resignations and layoffs under Soon-Shiong’s ownership. Most recently, Soon-Shiong blocked the paper from endorsing Democrat Kamala Harris in last month’s presidential election, sparking outrage from many staff.
The “bias meter”, Soon-Shiong said, will be integrated into articles so that “somebody could understand, as they read it, that the source of the article has some level of bias”.
“And what we need to do is not have what we call confirmation bias, and then that story automatically, the reader can press a button and get both sides of that exact same story based on that story and then give comments,” he added.
Soon-Shiong told Jennings that he had been “quietly building” the AI tool “behind the scenes” and expressed his hope to launch it by this coming January."
