The use of artificial intelligence in Alaska and proposals to build data centers in the state to support AI have certainly been the subject of news stories, amid a global AI boom.
But, since earlier this year, the state has seen news stories generated by AI, under the authorship of AI agents developed by the humans behind Alaska News.
It's a simple enough name, but the implications are far from straightforward.
The newly rebooted Anchorage Press took a close look, and Anchorage Press Executive Editor Nat Herz even interviewed Walter, one of the AI agents.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Nat Herz: This was a very Alaska-focused and Alaska-specific news platform with a pretty interesting like crew of characters behind it, including Cale Green, who is a former media guy, but also part of the Jeff Landfield, Landmine media empire, formerly, which is sort of edgy. Matt Larkin, who is a conservative pollster and has been a confidant of Gov. Mike Dunleavy. And also including Grant Robinson, who worked, has worked, as a communications aide to Dunlevy. And so it was like, OK, there's some themes here. This is interesting.
Casey Grove: So what is the stated goal or the concept that they're after here?
NH: They've created a system that essentially swallows all sorts of primary source documents and other things that are generated — videos, audio recordings — that are essentially the raw materials of news. So city council agendas, recordings of city council meetings, public notices. I think they're even pulling in new patent registrations from people who live in Alaska. And then the AI writes a story, and in some cases just posts it directly onto the website without any human intervention.
CG: How did you actually talk to Walter? Were you speaking with Walter? Did you type your questions? How did that work?
NH: Cale was basically like, "The only way to really access Walter is through my computer." So we went up to Cale's office where he basically he turned over his desktop to me after he logged on to his app and he was like, "Hey Walter, just FYI, you are now doing an interview with Nat Herz, who's a journalist," and then I got on and I said, "Hey Walter, this is Nat. I edit the Anchorage Press. I'm a reporter. We're doing a Q&A. I'm going to publish it. So like you're on the record, man."
It just went like a normal back and forth with an AI system that you're trying to get to do something that you want. So I would ask questions, and then the system would be thinking, thinking, thinking, and then it would spit back an answer, and then I would write in a question, and it would spit back an answer. And we kind of got into it a little bit. The reality is, it's trained, and so it wasn't going to tell me anything really out of leftfield. But still, it's like you don't know.
CG: It seemed like most of its answers were in line with this idea that it's just hoovering up public documents, and apparently it can even just listen to to meetings, right? There were some things where it would say, "That's a topic for the human team." So tell me about that. What were the things that were off limits for Walter to talk about?
NH: It was acting like a journalist, where I would say, "Tell me about your owners, and tell me about your owners' motivations. Like, do they have surreptitious, politically driven motivations?" And Walter says, "I can't speak for my owners' motivations." In fairness, I think it was trying to assert that its area of "expertise" — and I think we can step back here and say this is a pretty weird and a little bit of a dystopian thing to be referring to a conversation with a computer, and I recognize that there's some issues with that — but where it's saying, "Look, I can speak really clearly to what I am assigned to do and the things that I have done as a computer program, and I'm not really an appropriate authority or source to speak to the human and emotional things of the humans that created me."
I don't know, that's like if someone asked me when I worked at the Anchorage Daily News, "What do you know or think about the motivations of the publisher and the executive editor?" I'd be like, "I don't know, I just do news." So, I thought that was reasonably fair.
CG: How do you see this impacting journalism in Alaska?
NH: I think Alaska media organizations and reporters that are trying to ignore and discount the value of artificial intelligence in all levels of the news business are burying their heads in the sand. Honestly, I think there are absolutely real, serious, bona fide issues and questions around the environmental impacts and the societal impacts of AI.
But is it something that sure as heck is really useful in certain research and summary functions and in organizing stuff? Abso-effing-lutely. It saves me a ton of time. You know, the question that I have, and I think the question that people should be asking is what are things that AI might be able to do, and what are things that AI probably isn't going to be able to do. Again, I just feel like we actually have an obligation to cover and think pretty openly about how these technologies are going to affect us and are potentially already impacting our society. And I think not talking about it isn't going to make it go away.
