Media industry insiders from seven countries met in Hamburg for two days to learn of media labs innovation and success stories. The big elephant in the room, however, was on large language models (LLM), which is super-hot after the introduction of ChatGPT.

Researcher Benjamin Kille, postdoc fellow at NorwAI, introduced the audience to ChatGPT and its siblings, describing the inner workings of the chatbot that made one million people log in after just five days at the introduction in December. He also briefed the 40 participants on the ongoing work on launching a Norwegian based Generative Pretrained Transformer (GPT) model this spring – for which Benjamin is the project manager.

The models' basic functionality is to predict the next word in a context via probability calculations. This enables impressive language solutions that generate texts for self-selected topics, summarize complex matters, answer questions in ongoing dialogues, writes code and many other fascinating features. The models can make use of both text and speech to generate text, speech and even illustrations and is often referred to as generative AI.

There are both opportunities and challenges relevant for LLM models. Obviously, it will improve efficiency in content production and will take robot production in news media to a higher level. It will help reporters in their focus investigation journalism. And also reduce costs for engaging viewers and readers, according to Benjamin Kille.

-On the other hand, large language models sometimes mix facts and fictions – they hallucinate and must be controlled by humans and factchecking methods. There are risks of misinformation and fake news and information overload for readers and viewers, says Benjamin Kille.

These are topics of intense discussion in the media community for the time being.

Generative AI will undoubtedly have impact on the media industry. But also, many other industries depending on creativity and knowledge will be affected.

Benjamin Kille urged delegates to check the possibilities themselves. The ChatGPT itself is often at capacity and deny login. The Silicon Valley chatbot has already adopted a paid service for 42 USD a month giving you priority. Benjamin advised people to use https://huggingface.co/ as an alternative helpful resource.