Lobster - Tell me like I am five

When I asked three normal questions online, Google’s AI helper answered first. It told me what I wanted to know before I even clicked on anything else, especially news. On my phone, I often did not see the news at all. I just saw Google’s helper. My clicks went to Spotify, YouTube, and Amazon. The best article I found came through Reddit, not search.

This is a big problem for journalists: people can get answers so fast that they may not even see that reporters did the work. Truth is: reporters often did do the work; Google is just parroting their words. For quick questions, that can be fine. But it also means journalism is easy to miss, even when it has the clearest facts.

If I were building a digital newspaper for this world, I would do things a little differently. I would not write only long articles. I would also keep small pieces of information that can snap together to answer a question. Journalists would still do the hard work, but I would have my own AI helper that turns their words into clear answers and points back to the full story. This AI helper would make reporters’ work count, not hide it.

Journalism may need to change to survive. But that does not have to be a bad thing.