JSK Journalism Fellowships and Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute renew partnership
The John S. Knight (JSK) Journalism Fellowships and the Stanford Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) Institute have renewed their partnership to help journalists explore the effects of artificial intelligence (AI) on the journalism industry and humanity.
The partnership embeds 2023-24 JSK-HAI Journalism Fellow Kaveh Waddell within Stanford’s HAI community. Waddell was most recently an investigative journalist at Consumer Reports where he used documents, data and rigorous testing to reveal corporate harms and overreach. During his fellowship, he plans to explore how generative AI might be used to accelerate complex, labor-intensive investigative reporting.
In addition, 2023 JSK alumnus Alex Goldmark joins the HAI community this academic year as Journalist in Residence. Goldmark is the executive producer for Planet Money at NPR. He is exploring ways to responsibly apply AI to journalism.
During his 2022-23 JSK Fellowship, Goldmark worked with students in Stanford’s computational journalism class and technical advisers to build an AI chatbot based on Planet Money’s archives. Through the process, they tested techniques for increasing accuracy or revealing sources behind AI-generated responses. Goldmark, who is based in New York, will visit campus regularly to continue this work.
As the public conversation around AI evolves, journalists will play a critical role setting the agenda on key AI issues that will shape society for years to come. This is the second time HAI and JSK have hosted a joint fellowship.
“It’s not a question of whether new artificial intelligence models that have exploded over the past year will change journalism, it’s a question of how. It is imperative that journalists not sit passively, ceding the future of AI and journalism to others,’’ said Dawn Garcia, director of the JSK Fellowships. “Kaveh and Alex will be publicly sharing their experiences and insights during this year.”
The Stanford HAI fellowship programs encourage interdisciplinary research, facilitate new collaborations, and seek to grow the community of researchers interested in human-centered approaches to AI.
Each year, JSK brings up to 18 journalists to Stanford to work on some of the most urgent issues facing the journalism industry and the communities journalism serves.
