Guwahati, Nov16: Advent of advanced technology and the internet have been largely a boon for media from various aspects even though the offsprings of the information technology, the various social media platforms pose great challenge to the conventional electronic (TV and radio) and print media in respect of maintaining credibility.
Similarly, the emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) will obviously subject the media as a whole to an acid test and media must gear up to reap the benefits of this new-age technology to improve its operation and information dissemination modes.
This was stated by veteran journalist and author Samudra Gupta Kashyap who now holds the coveted post of Chancellor of Nagaland University. Throwing light on the plausible challenges posed to the media by AI tools, Kashyap said as long as AI tools would be controlled by the brain of human beings, there were chances that these would be a boost to the media.
The veteran journalist and author who had extensively covered the Northeast India for four decades since 1991, was delivering a speech on “ Media in the era of Artificial Intelligence” on the occasion of state-level celebration of National Press Day organised here under the aegis of Directorate of Information and Public Relations (DIPR), Government of Assam.
Kashyap gave an insight to how technology has been part of human culture and intellectual practices since days of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and how it has been instrumental in development of audio-visual media across the world. He, however, sounded a note of alarm over the damaging impact on the credibility of the media through use of ‘Deep Fake’ software.
He traced back the history of the Press Council of India and recalled the contributions of yesteryear’s stalwarts of media in Assam and India for its robust growth in the current century.
He said since the media is construed as the reflection of the society it becomes a subject of research to find out whether the state of the prevalent society is responsible for alleged degeneration of ethics and taste in the way of dissemination of information by a section of media as of now.
Earlier, setting ball rolling for the programme which was attended by a large number of senior journalists, officers and staff of the DIPR, the Director of the Department Manabendra Deb Roy called for introspection on part of the media to regain its credibility in the face of misinformation onslaught of various social media platforms that have no accountability.