'Ai must be shaped by journalistic ethics' 

2025-09-02 12:00:39


	 

	Melike Aydin

	 

	IZMIR - Gülin Çavuş stated that, in the face of AI making it easier to produce fake news, rights advocacy should be increased, and journalists should give a voice to those who address the ethical side of business.

	 

	The development of AI brings about a new form of journalism and adds new dimensions to problems related to the public's right to information and freedom of expression. AI is a developing technology that can detect disinformation, "deep fake" images, and fake news production as a reflection of male dominance. It can also detect such falsifications.

	 

	Çavuş, one of the founders of Teyit.org, points out that there are organizations working to establish independent, open-source, community-controlled AI systems.

	 

	'It doesn't end the profession; it accelerates it'

	 

	"Artificial intelligence cannot end journalism," said Gülin Çavuş. "Artificial intelligence and developing technologies alone do not have the power to end journalism. However, reasons such as ideology and income model problems are already feeding into its demise. At the end of the day, artificial intelligence is just another factor. But how will it affect journalism? The nature of the work will change; we need to be prepared for that. We also see a structure where processes that are difficult for some journalists can become easier. For example, journalists who work with big data will definitely benefit from AI's ability to speed up the process of acquiring, compiling, and reaching a meaningful data set."

	 

	'It has to discover what it can do'

	 

	Stating the importance of having a human oversee AI news, Gülin Çavuş said, "That editorial perspective is what makes journalism journalism. It's about where you look from and who you are." Therefore, AI can be very useful for journalism when used in this way. We need to look at how journalism will benefit from it. Many media organizations already benefit from it. Maybe we should take them as examples and explore what can be done. However, we should not surrender to artificial intelligence. It should be perceived as providing supervision and support in technical matters. No other technological development can replicate the observation in the field and the bond that a journalist's physical presence creates. For example, when something happens in Gaza, the importance of being on the ground there increases, showing us the suffering and massacre of the people."

	 

	'Trying to identify sexist language'

	 

	Continuing, Gülin Çavuş said, "We cannot trust artificial intelligence unconditionally. Since it is independent of us and feeds on the content we develop, it will produce results based on that content. This is one of the ethical debates, especially in artificial intelligence." Many researchers are trying to determine how much sexist language is in artificial intelligence models. Therefore, we need to keep in mind that the data running those filters and models should definitely be open to our intervention. Open-source models are healthier. When we use a model like that, the picture we see in today's news is what artificial intelligence can offer us."

	 

	The important thing is who the power is focused on

	 

	AI can disseminate, detect, and prevent disinformation. Both have certain limitations. Technology depends on intention. Who uses it, and with what intention? Large language models can generate highly convincing fake news. They are already creating deepfake content. As long as they are misused, we will face negative outcomes. However, it can also be used for positive purposes, especially in times of crisis. We've already started to encounter problems such as fake audio recordings and fake images of politicians during election periods. I think this will become more dangerous as the models evolve. An important question is who has this technological capacity and power. We need to emphasize the big tech companies, how they use their models, how they utilize them, how they control them, and how open they are to regulations.

	 

	Therefore, we need to understand the focal points well. In other words, we should not underestimate technology companies. It is possible to prevent some legitimate discourse here. It seems like it doesn't recognize any country; it only looks at money.