By CYBER CIC
My news app now reads with emotion, and I’m not certain I like it.
Back in 2019 and 2020, I documented how I had lost my cognitive security amidst poor reporting and questionable journalistic standards. I recommended then that consumers consider refraining from TV or video for consuming news. Video news can control the spoken tone, chosen videos, and accompanying music too much. Rather, reading the news helps consumers to minimize bias and emotion in the reporting.
I often read or listen to the Wall Street Journal. I like to listen to news articles while I multitask on a routine physical action like making breakfast or walking outside. I go to the top of the news page, open the first article, and hit “Start” to listen to the first article. Away it goes until the app has read all the listed articles in the section. I like the Journal because I can select a range of reported stories. For example, I can read in one article how one side is losing a war and in another article read how the opposite side is losing the war.
(By the way, Murphy’s Laws of Combat state that if both sides think they are losing, they are both correct.)
When the app comes to the editorial section, I know I’m going to hear a perspective that is pro-business, pro-individual liberty, or pro-minimal government. However, I also know that I’ll get the other side of the opinion from responsive, influential Americans. For example, two senators go at it over Supreme Court justices recusing themselves. By the time I have eaten breakfast, petted the cat, and settled into my home office, I’m caught up on current events.
The original app reader had a plain, unemotional female voice. About a month ago, however, I turned on the Wall Street Journal app to listen to an article. The voice that came back to me was not the same as the original. The new voice now reads the articles with some emotion and (deliberate pause) almost an incredulity or surprise when warranted. I almost can hear a wry smile come across my hearing aids’ Bluetooth connection when she discusses the foibles of political belligerents.
Remarkable (read with surprise) !
I suppose I can blame generative artificial intelligence (AI) for this. Indeed, I will. The AI program likely ingested oodles of news programs and other oral human transmissions to create a voice that injects an expected voice pattern and inflection to accompany the spoken words. Unless I can learn how to nullify the inflections, or the Journal hears my plea and decides to return to the semi-robotic reading voice of old, I suppose I’m going back to reading the articles – good-bye, multitasking, and hello, more screen time – or I’ll need to increase my self-awareness to fight through the biased voice, who not-so-subtly insinuates how I should feel about the report.
Super (read with the dryest and most deadpan voice possible).