"The Washington Post's new offering, "Your Personal Podcast," uses artificial intelligence to customize podcasts for its users, blending the algorithm you might find in a news feed with the convenience of portable audio. The podcast is "personalized automatically based on your reading history" of Post articles, the newspaper says on its help page. Listeners also have some control: At the click of a button, they can alter their podcast's topic mix or even swap its computer-generated "hosts.""
"The AI podcast immediately made headlines and drew criticisms from people questioning its accuracy, and the motives behind it. Nicholas Quah, a critic and staff writer for Vulture and New York magazine who writes a newsletter about podcasts, says the AI podcast is an example of the Post's wide-ranging digital experiments but one that didn't go quite right. "This is one of many technologically, digitally oriented experiments that they're doing" that is aimed at "getting more audience, breaking into new demographics," he says."
"On that help page, the newspaper stresses that the podcast is in its early beta phase and "is not a traditional editorial podcast." Bailey Kattleman, head of product and design at the Post, calls it "an AI-powered audio briefing experience" and one that will soon let listeners talk back to it. "In an upcoming release, they'll be able to actually interact and ask follow up questions to dig in deeper to what they've just heard," Kattleman says in an interview with NPR."
The Washington Post launched an AI-powered podcast personalized automatically based on users' Washington Post reading history, blending feed-like algorithms with portable audio. Listeners can adjust the podcast's topic mix and swap computer-generated hosts. The product is presented as an early beta and described as not a traditional editorial podcast; it is positioned as an AI-powered audio briefing that will soon allow listeners to interact and ask follow-up questions. The launch prompted headlines and raised concerns about accuracy, motives, and whether the format compromises core journalistic principles. The offering is part of broader digital experimentation including generative AI tools and a digital publishing platform.
Read at www.npr.org
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