The Washington Post launches AI tool that taps into the archives
The Washington Post has launched an experimental AI tool ‘Ask The Post AI’ which leverages its articles and allows users to find answers through its archive.
It works like a chatbot, with users able to ask questions and then the tool will answer using data from the Post’s newsroom. The content includes articles that have been published since 2016.
The team says they hope to incorporate reporting from their video and audio desks in future releases, as well as commentary and opinions.
It is the publisher’s latest push into the AI space, following previous launches like the article key takeaways, ‘Climate Answers’ experiment, ‘Haystacker’ tool, and the AI-audio reading of the news.
“This is the next chapter in building habits for our next generation of users,” said Vineet Khosla, chief technology officer for The Washington Post .
“The changed search experience across the industry calls for us to meet the moment and meet audiences how, when, and where they want to be served with an updated user experience.”
Throughout the ‘Ask The Post AI’ website, there are warnings that people should verify the information by consulting the provided articles.
In an explainer article, published by the newsroom, the daily newspaper states: “ Ask the Post AI may not always function exactly as we hope – which is why we are asking you to confirm the results with the published articles.
“That said, by limiting the search results to our published work, we are ensuring that every piece of information synthesized by the AI is based on work previously published by The Washington Post newsroom.
“Second, if the tool doesn’t readily find sufficient reporting to provide a response, it won’t serve a reply.”
How does The Washington Post’s ‘Ask The Post AI’ tool work?The tool works in the same way as other chatbots, with a search box visible on its home page. It’s through this that users can ask any questions and in response, the tool searches articles published by the newsroom since 2016.
It ranks the results based on relevancy and a large language model is then used to write a response to answer the question. In some cases, a pre-written answer is provided if the tool cannot understand what has been asked.
While only the last eight years’ worth of articles have been inputted into the system, all published recipes on the website have been indexed regardless of the date.
Featured Image: Credit to Ask The Post AI (The Washington Post)
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