As AI technology becomes more widely available and advances alongside a rapidly expanding population, the media world has no choice but to incorporate the new and advancing tool into the everyday life of a media employee.

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Much debate exists regarding the idea of AI for content creation. Should we allow AI to write articles for us so that we can meet daily publication requirements? Should we let AI handle beats that have a less social and economic impact on our readers, like art, movie reviews and sports? The idea of AI as a creation tool for expediting quantity is a slippery slope leading to unchecked publications and an overage of spammy content.

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However, when streamlining research and data analysis, artificial intelligence quickly becomes unmatched in storing, categorizing, citing and projecting information, especially when the information is data-driven. 

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If you want to know how many times LSU has scored in the red zone this season, you can use AI to find that information almost faster than anywhere else you would traditionally research it. If you would like to know what the top 10 restaurants in New Orleans are according to public opinion, AI can tell you that. If you want to produce financial summaries and business projections or sort through years of stored data to find corresponding information over long periods, AI can do that. 

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In addition to helping with research and development of stories and projects, using AI to help with brainstorming helps reduce the amount of bias and spin injected into our projects for our readership. Well designed and continually developed AI tools can help identify disparities in articles where writers give too much charge to one side and reject the worldview of other subjects in the conversation. Something that has led the public to have a general distrust of the media.

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Despite its many advantages, AI should not be used to create content simply for the sake of creating content. It is not a get-rich-quick generator. If it was, the Times and the Post would have laid off their entire writing floor by now and replaced them with four or five IT guys with a sense of AP style. 

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Ultimately, AI's role in the media has yet to be defined, with most of the old guard still holding up strong barricades to entry for the new technology, but we have officially opened Pandora's box. Now that technology is here, it will only go on for so long without being ignored. 

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Bob Dylan had a great song that aided in the winning of his Noble Prize for Literature "The Times They Are-A Changin'." Generationally, this song has had a place as the technology and social issues of the new guard have moved in to challenge that of the old. Though it may not seem like it, AI is a pillar of the new guard. The amount of jobs that AI will make obsolete and the amount of time that AI will save on research, development, and analytics is beyond anything we could have hoped.

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As AI enters the market and begins taking charge, we must prioritize the irreplaceable human side of storytelling. However, regarding the nitty gritty of media development, to quote Dylan, "You better start swimmin', or you'll sink like a stone for the times they are a changin'."