Will AI Replace Journalists? The Question Facing the Media Industry
What the world’s leading companies—and even the Vatican—are saying about artificial intelligence. Can AI be considered morally neutral? And how is it reshaping the way people consume news?
Will artificial intelligence replace journalists? Before answering a question that has become increasingly common across the media industry, it is worth taking a closer look at the current state of AI. There is no doubt that the technology represents a profound transformation, but recent developments suggest that its rapid expansion is also encountering significant challenges.
On Friday, during her segment on La Mañana on LU12, journalist Victoria Lescano presented a report on the latest developments regarding the use of AI by major international companies. Due to high operating costs, Microsoft has reportedly canceled most of the licenses for an AI tool used by its software developers. Uber exhausted its entire AI budget for 2026 in just four months. Meanwhile, Bryan Catanzaro, Vice President at NVIDIA, a leading manufacturer of AI chips, stated that the cost of using AI within his own team was “by far” higher than employing human workers.
While the cost of AI for individual users continues to decline, the most advanced models require increasingly greater computing resources to perform complex tasks. “It’s as if gasoline keeps getting cheaper, but the car suddenly starts consuming ten times more fuel,” Lescano explained. Does this mean AI has reached its limits? Clearly not. However, the long-held assumption that machines are always the less expensive option appears to be losing strength.
Lescano also referred to a recent Vatican encyclical arguing that artificial intelligence cannot be regarded as morally neutral. According to the document, “in a world where a few actors concentrate data, informational capital, and decision-making power,” a new form of inequality is emerging. “There are new monopolies of knowledge,” the Vatican warns. The Pope also questioned the environmental cost of the data centers used to train AI models, noting that they consume enormous quantities of water at a time when natural resources are under increasing pressure.
But what does all this mean for journalism?
The journalist cited the Reuters Institute's latest findings, which show that only 35% of people between the ages of 18 and 24 say they are very or extremely interested in news. Four out of ten respondents in that age group admit they actively avoid news, most commonly because they find it “depressing,” “uninteresting,” or “too difficult” to understand. Ironically, this is also the generation most familiar with artificial intelligence and the most comfortable using AI tools to stay informed. The reason, Lescano explained, is that AI summarizes information, provides context, delivers direct answers, and does not challenge users or encourage critical reflection.
However, she cautioned against a common misconception. The knowledge used by AI systems “comes from the work of journalists—people who investigate, verify facts, cross-check sources, and report from the scene. The work they publish becomes the raw material these systems rely on,” she explained. “AI can generate answers, but it does not produce new information.”
That, she concluded, is the key point: at least for now, artificial intelligence is not going to replace journalists.
Source: La Opinión Austral
Author: Pablo Manuel
Picture: Solen Feyissa