← Back to blog
Insight
Wednesday, October 18, 2023

The Lakes Every Reporter Should Know: Data Lakes

We may no longer simply report the news. We must analyze the information that we are using in order to say what has occurred factually.

Large Language Models (LLMs) come from data lakes. These are big pools of unstructured data. Think about video, tweets, tik tok, what's app, emails, podcasts, or radio. Meta data is continuously flying around. All this vast information gets stored in data lakes. LLMs like Chat GPT use that collection of assorted information, and based on a set of rules, can generate words and sentences it has been taught to produce.

When we start using LLMs what we are doing is interacting with automated intelligence, something that knows the rules of sentence structure and grammar. If this, then that. The answers that get generated are simply a reflection of the data set it has been fed, and what was available at the time, at the geographical location a person made their query. It's not necessarily factual.

Candyce Kelshall, President of the Canadian Association of Security and Intelligence Studies, tells me "this is scary, it's as basic as sweeping the floor" ,that's how information is just scooped up. Journalists need to think of who is behind the data they're replying on, while keeping pace with technologies, she says.

"From a security perspective.When you go home you lock your door, you close your curtains. You use a trusted provider to order food. You're careful about the internet. The same rules apply when it comes to information management in a newsroom."

To ensure data hygiene, the kind of people news leaders hire into a newsroom is important. The right skill sets and talent need to be in place. It's important to know who AI software developers are. What kind of products they create. Look for the track record behind all the AI that's used because all code is vulnerable.

Interested to learn more?

Sign up today to get notified when the course becomes available on presenting on the future of comms and AI

More from the blog

The Newsroom of the Future

Newsrooms of the future will need to operate, in part, as an intelligence agency in order to manage the challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence

Data. Everywhere, All The Time

The four key trends of data in the world today that you need to know as a communications expert or media company.

Welcome to the Rundown

Hi everyone. Welcome to the Rundown’s blog page. Here we’ll share why we are creating this media platform and our thoughts on the media industry trends as they are unfolding.