Professor
Fabio ChiusiLearning objectives
By the end of the course each student will have the interpretative tools to appreciate the scope and critical issues raised by the digital revolution, and in particular automation, in the world of publishing. Skills and knowledge that will be developed concern basic literacy in artificial intelligence, its meaning, its history and functioning. This will provide the foundation for an attempt at understanding the profound changes it is introducing in the dynamics of editorial content production, in business models, and in debates on the ethics and deontology of those who carry out cultural, artistic and communication-related professions.
Course content
- What we talk about when we talk about AI, and why it is increasingly relevant to the publishing world. History and ideology in the concept of AI
- How AI is automating society, and the debate about how to regulate automation in our lives
- What we talk about when we talk about AI in the publishing world
- At the frontiers of augmented creativity: exercises and experiments to explore whether and how creative machines are, and how creative we are with machines
- Content that writes and illustrates itself: from GPT-2 to ChatGPT and beyond
- Discovering the real with AI: exercise and examples
- How AI impacts business models and economic sustainability of publishing companies. The fundamental tension between efficiency and quality.
- Producing, analyzing and personalizing editorial content with generative AI: exercises and practices
- Ethics and professional ethics in the use of AI in editorial contexts: algorithmic bias, automatic discrimination and how to minimize its harms
- Practice for the final exam, on possible exam questions.
Prerequisites
Understanding and personal reworking of the themes raised during the course 'Journalism and new media'. Interest in innovation in the publishing field, and in particular in the field of artificial intelligence. Interest in reflections on the frontiers of creativity, work and human communication.
Bibliography
– LSE/GNI, Generating Change. A global survey of what news organizations are doing with artificial intelligence, https://www.journalismai.info/research/2023-generating-change <br> - LSE/GNI, New powers, new responsibilities. A global survey of journalism and artificial intelligence, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/polis/2019/11/18/new-powers-new-responsibilities/
Teaching methods and tools
Frontal lessons, starting from presentations in slides and videos. Reading and discussion of significant extracts from bibliographic and course material. Creative workshops and critical/personal elaboration of the problems left open during the course. Hands-on exercises to explore and experiment with the tools problematized during the course.
Assessment methods and criteria
Final written test with open questions, to allow for personal/critical reflection on the material exposed during the course
