Derrick Teal  I  Editor-in-Chief

I’ve never considered myself a journalist, even though I technically am, but I’ve never taken a journalism course in my life. Still, I am part of the media—which I’m reminded of every time I try and join a focus group online and get kicked out when I’m asked something like, “Do you or does any member of your immediate family work for a newspaper, magazine, radio or television station?” And if people like me are to be believed, meaning people in the media, then apparently I need to worry about AI taking my job. After my experiences with it, though, I’m not.

The fear of a machine taking a human’s job is nothing new. It’s been a concern of those who work in manufacturing pretty much since shortly after the Industrial Revolution, the media just happens to be the next group facing this existential crisis. I’ve heard stories about some organizations replacing their writing rooms with AI. I even have a colleague who started working at one of our sister publications only after her entire review group at a medical journal was replaced by AI. Our senior contributor, Wayne Labs, gave AI a go for research on an article he wrote earlier this year, with little success. After hearing all of this, I decided to give it a go myself.

I wondered who could write a better article about this month’s cover story, Meati’s Mega Ranch, FE’s 2024 Sustainable Plant of the Year. For full disclosure, I only used free versions of AI programs, so maybe some of the paid versions would offer better results. I really hope for those companies’ sakes that they do, because the results I got were less than inspiring.

Certain facts that could be found online through a normal search were there, such as the location and that Meati's Mega Ranch produces mycelium-based foods. Other facts that the platforms inferred were a bit more concerning, like the one that seemed to think Meati was raising the mycelium in the same way that you’d expect a cattle ranch to raise cattle.

Maybe I had the benefit of information that the AI didn’t have? So, I then tried to have AI summarize my recorded interviews about the project. Again, some parts were accurate, but other parts where the program tried to “read between the lines” so to speak, that’s where it went off the rails. I had a good laugh if AI had been mentioned during the interviews, even in passing, because every program latched on to that and ran on and on about AI beyond the context. Ego much?

The whole experience got me to wondering about the efficacy of AI in food and beverage plants. I can’t imagine any company is fully trusting its operations to AI, I certainly haven’t heard of any, but I know parts of operations do make use of it with someone on hand to oversee the work.

I’m aware that this is an apples to oranges comparison since writing an article is very different from something like predicting supply chain shortages, but it was a fun experiment that served as a reminder that AI isn’t ready to completely take over the world quite yet. Given the basic mistakes I found, I think it’s pretty amazing someone could think AI would replace anyone at all. In the way that people are needed to keep an eye on automated systems in manufacturing, people are still needed in media to ensure the information is accurate.

But if you do find mistakes anywhere on FE, I’m blaming AI. FE

Cheers,
Derrick