TVMorphosis 2023: Re/Thinking the Evolution of Media through Generative Artificial Intelligence

In a media landscape characterized by constant change and rapid industry transformation, spaces that allow for reflection on these processes become crucial.

At the Ibero-American level, TVMorfosis (Mexico) has positioned itself as one of the most relevant congresses in this field for the past decade, primarily focused on the evolution of television, with editions that have been replicated in Colombia, Argentina, Spain, and Cuba.

The event, which takes the format of a televised forum, has diversified recently with the parallel production of RadioMorfosis, a new space that analyzes the evolution of radio in the face of new technologies.

Since its inception, TVMorfosis has brought together leaders, creatives, academics, and media experts to generate conversations about digital transformation and emerging trends in audiovisual storytelling. Both events feature an interesting diversity of voices that converge in panels, fostering a polyphonic dialogue about the intersection of media, technology, and innovation.

The 2023 edition of TVMorfosis and RadioMorfosis, held in August in Guanajuato, Mexico, revolved around the impact of Generative Artificial Intelligence on various dimensions of media: production, distribution, audiences, and consumption, among others.

My participation was divided into two panels, both in RadioMorfosis and TVMorfosis. In RadioMorfosis, I was part of a discussion titled “The Rhythm of News: Voice and Journalism Today,” alongside Mitzi Pineda, Rodrigo Crespo, and Yissel Ibarra, where we debated, among other things, the role of radio in the news ecosystem, new audio products, and experimentation in formats and narratives by content creators.

RadioMorfosis: The Rhythm of News: Voice and Journalism Today

At TVMorfosis, interesting conversations also emerged afterwards with Hanaa’ Tameez, Amado Cabrera, and Ricardo Muñoz, with whom we formed the panel titled “AI: Serving the News?”

TVMorfosis: AI Serving the News?

The mix of topics and diverse panelists in TVMorfosis and RadioMorfosis provided an interesting interdisciplinary framework for mapping the various ways in which Artificial Intelligence can redefine the audiovisual and radio industry, the entertainment and creative sectors, and, of course, education.

Due to scheduling constraints, I couldn’t attend everything I would have liked to, but from what I did see, I’d like to highlight the panel “Artificial Weave: Creativity in Crisis?” featuring Raquel Guerrero Viguri, Doreen A. Ríos, and Alejandro Piscitelli. In this panel, they shared some truly intriguing ideas for contemplating the topic, such as this insightful chain of reflections (as usual) from Alejandro.

I also appreciated Germán Pérez’s insights on languages and how they shape the connection between media, as well as several concepts from Carlos Metacube regarding the future relationship between AI, the audiovisual industry, and platforms. It’s a fascinating topic.

Personally, I’ve always tried to keep one foot in academia and another in the industry. I believe it’s a good way to stay in tune with both worlds (which undoubtedly should work more closely together) and leverage tools, concepts, methodologies, and experiences from one into the other and vice versa.

In this regard, my contributions were oriented toward the event’s general theme, which I have been researching and writing about for several years. From an academic perspective, I’ve systematized concepts and case studies for my classes at various universities, and from the industry side, I’ve gathered experiences from consulting and training sessions I’ve conducted in media organizations.

In hindsight, many of these interventions had the explicit intention (always personally stimulating) of generating conversations that help us rethink and reconsider media in light of their connection with technology, in this case, the new possibilities (and challenges) presented by Generative Artificial Intelligence.

Some of the ideas I shared during the two days:

(When) the Content of a New Medium is an Old Medium

A classic phrase from Marshall McLuhan that always aids in rethinking the new connections between sound and information. From radio to streaming, circularity, languages, and the evolution of media.

The Sound Revolution on the Internet

Podcasts are the primary outcome of the ongoing sound revolution on the internet.

Generative Artificial Intelligence intersects with this trend, expanding opportunities for journalism and news in Spanish across the American continent.

Generative Artificial Intelligence as an Evolutionary Gateway

The concept of an “Evolutionary Gateway” is often used to mark pivotal moments in human history — periods in which history is divided into a before and an after, and once we pass through that evolutionary gateway, it becomes very difficult to return to the world we left behind.

Examples in this context include the pre- and post-printing press world, the pre- and post-Internet world, the pre- and post-mobile world, and currently, the pre- and post-Generative Artificial Intelligence world.

While Artificial Intelligence as a technology dates back to the 1950s, there’s no doubt that the arrival of Generative Artificial Intelligence, with the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, opened a new evolutionary gateway.

In this sense, one of the most insightful works on the topic is perhaps the “Atlas of Artificial Intelligence,” written by Kate Crowford. It provides a general conceptual framework that helps us understand the various dimensions of this technology and its impact(s) on political, social, and environmental levels on the planet.

Tools, Technologies, and Cumulative Cultural Evolution

Part of what sets humans apart from animals is not merely the use of tools; many animals utilize elements from nature as tools.

What primarily distinguishes us is how humans modify their tools over time, making them more complex — an anthropological concept known as “Cumulative Cultural Evolution.” It involves ideas passed down among communities over thousands of years, evolving and adapting within our culture. The bone-spaceship ellipse in the film “2001: A Space Odyssey” is a brilliant encapsulation of this concept, depicting millions of years of human evolution through Stanley Kubrick’s unique aesthetic perspective.

Advances in technology have enabled engineers and developers to create machines capable of learning from the past and generating information based on what they’ve learned. The digitalization process has accelerated this by creating vast content corpora to build datasets that can feed algorithms.

Analog content that gets digitized becomes something that can be mathematically analyzed by systems trained to learn. Newspapers and books transformed into websites, records and tapes converted into MP3s, or photographs turned into JPEGs. It’s impossible to grasp the advent of Generative Artificial Intelligence without considering the three decades of the internet and the digitalization of a significant portion of our world that preceded it.

Our (New) Ways of Interacting with Knowledge

Artificial intelligence will change the way we engage with information by altering the processes of knowledge creation and distribution.

This raises a series of questions in the near future for journalism: What changes for the SEO industry? How do young audiences consume news? What role will traditional media occupy in this context?

Of Hallucinations and the Thin Line between Plausibility and Truth

There’s a two-way issue in the relationship between Artificial Intelligence and journalism. Humans are inclined to believe everything machines tell us, and Artificial Intelligence is technically incapable of acknowledging its ignorance. Responding with “I don’t know” isn’t in its repertoire of options.

Regarding the hallucinations of Generative AI and the thin line between plausibility and truth. Could news articles training algorithms be a possible future for the media industry?

Regarding Confusions in the Narratives Used to Cover Technology in Journalism

Since the end of last year, news related to Artificial Intelligence has dominated the global media agenda. The widespread audience interest in this type of information and the speed of technological and conceptual changes have led to various errors in media coverage. What are the risks associated with this?

Generative AI as a Catalyst for Creativity

If the social and multimedia web revolutionized access and distribution of information in the mid-2000s, two decades later, the era of Generative AI has the potential to become a significant catalyst for human creativity, providing synthetic production power on unprecedented scales.

It’s time to start reflecting on the use of virtual assistants, for example, in production processes within newsrooms, and the questions that arise in this regard:

• How will the growing adoption of Generative AI in journalism affect the demand for traditional skills and roles in newsrooms?
• What is the role of a journalist in the news generation process when AI is involved?
• To what extent could Generative AI contribute to combating misinformation and fake news online?
• What legal and intellectual property implications arise when using Generative AI to create journalistic content?
• What ethical challenges might arise when employing Generative AI in the creation of journalistic content?

These are just a few questions to open up the debate.

We had an excellent week between León and Guanajuato filled with typical meals, Mexican history, and, of course, interesting exchanges with colleagues from Latin America and the USA. Just to mention a few of them, the shared ideas about the media industry with Hanaa’ Tameez (Nieman Journalism Lab), the (numerous) notions about the future of narrative journalism in podcasts with Mitzi Pineda, the Colombia-Argentina connection with Luis Felipe Hincapié, and the conversations between flights and layovers with Irina Sternik and Alberto Rodriguez.

Starting from this post, I want to extend my thanks to Carlos Scolari (a regular at the event) for the generous recommendation, to Alejandro Piscitelli for the stimulating conversations on the go, and to the TVMorfosis organization for the invitation.