AI-Powered Journalism: A Panacea or Pandora’s Box Against Disinformation

This chapter critically assesses the dual role of artificial intelligence in journalism—as both a tool against disinformation and a potential amplifier of it. Taking Francesco Marconi’s optimistic vision of “augmented journalism” as a point of departure, it questions whether AI’s promised efficiencies are realistic given an overworked, understaffed, and financially strained newsroom workforce, and argues that Marconi’s account overlooks small and local outlets while underplaying threats to journalistic depth and editorial autonomy. Situating AI within a longer history of machine creativity (Harold Cohen’s AARON) and competing theories of human creativity (Boden, Cropley, Longoni), the chapter contends that AI lacks the emotion, context, and intentionality central to human authorship, raising unresolved questions of ownership and privacy. On the corrective side, it reviews AI applications in sentiment analysis, check-worthiness detection, and automated fact-checking, noting that large language models such as GPT-4 show promise yet still trail human fact-checkers and that audiences exhibit “AI aversion,” trusting news less once AI involvement is disclosed. On the threat side, it examines audience-driven “iterative journalism” that risks entrenching echo chambers, the scaling of generative-AI disinformation, and the growing accessibility of deepfakes. The chapter concludes that responsible integration demands transparency, sustained human oversight, and continued multidisciplinary research.