Le Monde warns that AI can end its business model

O executive president of Le Monde, Louis Dreyfus, warned today at Web Summit that the newspaper would lose its business model if readers thought the texts were written by artificial intelligence (IA).

Dreyfus, who spoke in a panel entitled “AI: your new news editor?”, recalled that the French diary “is lucky” of 75% of its recipes come from readers.

“If, at some point, the reader thinks that what he is reading was not created by human beings, nor by our writing, but by AI, it would mean the end of the model,” he warned.

The manager has ensured that Le Monde will draw a very clear line between what is allowed and what is not in the use of AI.

“ It is very clear to us that on the day we start publishing texts written by AI, there will be difficulties with our public ", he said.

Dreyfus pointed out as the main difficulty to maintain a positive perspective on AI and explained that the aim of the French diary is to train 100% of the writing.

“AI can be a very effective assistant, we can do much more, but there are things that will never be done with AI, even if it is technically possible,” he added.

On the same panel, Reuters President Paul Bascobert considered that the AI can help edit and analyze, but should not take the place of the editor or analyst.

“ I think it is important that human beings are part of the process,” he said.

According to Bascobert, technology can make work much more productive and efficient and allow more people to be placed on the front line, where value is created by collecting history.

After collecting the information on the ground, with the photograph, the statements and the field work, Basquebert said he did not see any problem in which the AI would help turn this material into a story.

“ But, ultimately, we practice responsible journalism [...] there is no article that has not been written or published without a name on the side,” he stressed.

Web Summit runs until Thursday, at the Lisbon International Fair and Meo Arena.

The event takes place since 2016 in Lisbon, this being its tenth edition, and should continue until 2028. Paddy Cosgrave did not advance details on whether Web Summit will remain in the capital of Portugal after the end of the contract.