It is highly likely, at this point, that most news consumers have heard of the ChatGPT website.
If not, click here to surf through the 56,100,000 reports currently about at Google News about this artificial intelligence (AI) project. Some would prefer to spend several months watching videos on the subject at YouTube. Good luck using the actual ChatGPT site — odds are high that you will have to wait in a long cyber-line to get access.
Journalists are concerned about ChatGPT because it offers a vision of what could be ahead in newsrooms, with computers “reporting” background reports on news events and even trends. And ChatGPT is a big deal in higher education, since it’s highly effective at faking all or significant chunks of term papers. The bot recently passed the U.S. Medical Licensing exams.
I was curious to know what ChatGPT thought about (#DUH) religion-news coverage. The results provided the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in). For example, I asked: “What does the website GetReligion.org do?” The response:
GetReligion.org is a media criticism blog that focuses on examining the way religion is covered by the mainstream news media. It aims to provide analysis and commentary on news stories that deal with religious topics and to point out instances of inaccurate or biased reporting.
Not bad. That’s part of what we do here. We also provide as many, or more, think pieces, Q&As and memos about topics linked to religion-beat work, care of patriarch Richard Ostling, chart-master Ryan Burge and others. We also, from time to time, praise high-quality reporting from mainstream newsrooms.
Oh, I also confess that I asked ChatGPT about that Terry Mattingly guy and — on my birthday, no less — received a kind report on my work that also (#shudder) implied that I am dead.
Terry Mattingly was an American journalist and religion reporter known for his writing on religion and culture. He was a syndicated columnist and founder of the website "GetReligion", which analyzed religion news coverage in the media.