- The Los Angeles Times introduced “Insights,” an AI feature providing perspective summaries and counterarguments in opinion pieces.
- "Insights" also labels each opinion piece with a bias indicator such as "center right" or "center left."
- The program has received backlash from critics about the content produced and lack of oversight.
As a part of a wave of changes made to the Los Angeles Times opinion section, the paper recently introduced “Insights,” a feature which provides artificial intelligence-generated summaries and counterarguments for opinion pieces.
The AI-driven feature was developed with Particle and Perplexity AI, “with the goal of enhancing reader engagement by offering additional perspectives on articles in the newspaper’s ‘Voices’ section,” per Forbes.
When readers click on the “Insights” button, they won’t just see summaries and counterarguments, they will also be given a label for the piece’s bias, such as “center right” or “center left.”
This new feature is just one example of a myriad of changes made to the publication’s opinion coverage, which have been ordered by the Times’ owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong.
According to The Associated Press, Soon-Shiong wants the paper’s opinion pages, which are famously liberal, to reflect different points of view.
Controversy around ‘Insights’
One of the first pieces to feature “Insights” was a column about Anaheim’s historical ties to the Ku Klux Klan. The AI-generated commentary on the piece tried to frame the KKK as “a ‘white Protestant culture’ responding to societal changes, rather than acknowledging its well-documented role as a violent hate group responsible for terrorizing Black Americans and other marginalized communities,” per Forbes.
The misrepresentation was quickly noticed by readers and other members of the media, prompting outrage from many people. Critics accused the LA Times of allowing an AI program to put content on its website that sanitized one of the country’s most infamous racist groups.
People within the industry saw the incident as an example of how artificial intelligence can generate misleading content, oftentimes amplifying biases, if it isn’t properly managed.
“The fact that an algorithm could produce such a tone-deaf interpretation of history underscored the limitations of current AI systems, particularly when dealing with sensitive or complex topics,” per Forbes.
It is not just the content from “Insights” itself and the lack of oversight over the program that has received criticism.
The paper’s management has also been criticized for prioritizing experimental AI projects over investments in staff and resources for its newsroom, according to Forbes.
The LA Times’ former editorials editor, Mariel Garza, told the AP that the idea of “Insights” feels like a gimmick.
“I think it could be offensive both to readers ... and the writers themselves who object to being categorized in simple and not necessarily helpful terms,” Garza said, per the AP. “The idea of having a bias meter just in and of itself is kind of an insult to intelligence and I’ve always thought that the readers of the opinion page were really smart.”
Changes to the LA Times editorial board
The addition of “Insights” is not the only change that has been made to the paper’s opinion pieces, with the changes stemming from Soon-Shiong, who bought the Times in 2018, per The AP.
Last fall, Soon-Shiong blocked the publication from endorsing Democratic candidate Kamala Harris for president. He also said he wants to overhaul the Times’ editorial board, which is responsible for researching and writing the newspapers’ editorials.
“If you just have the one side, it’s just going to be an echo chamber,” Soon-Shiong said, according to the AP.
He added that expanding the outlook is “going to be risky and it’s going to be difficult. I’m going to take a lot of heat, which I already am, but I come from the position that it’s really important that all voices be heard.”
Critics of Soon-Shiong have accused him of making these changes as a way to gain favor with President Donald Trump.
After Soon-Shiong started making these changes, the six members of the paper’s editorial board left the LA Times, and now the owner says he will be appointing new board members. He also said that he was looking for more conservative or moderate columnists to appear in the paper, per the AP.