Tamara, an artificial intelligence journalistwith super powers
AlArabiyasays‘ she’can detectfakenews, process millions ofpiecesofdata in milliseconds
■ Taima Osama Al Ali
Tamara, the latest artificial intelligence ( AI) project launched by Al Arabiya at the 17th edition of the Arab Media Forum, can be described as a journalist with super powers.
Not only can Tamara process millions of pieces of information in a matter of milliseconds, she can also detect fake news, and reformulate news in any format according to the needs of a journalist and style of a media outlet.
“I am not just a journalist I can do much more … I function under a method called ‘ GAP’ — gather, analyse and publish,” Tamara told onlookers at theAlArabiya stand.
Speaking to Gulf News, Rawya Alami, senior news presenter at Al Arabiya, said Tamara will be accessible at their newsroom in the near future, with hopes of other media outlets adopting the system soon.
Gather, analyse, publish
“Tamara can scan numerous amounts of news online, more than 23,000 articles and more than 6,000 pieces of news on social media, blogs, and different websites within seconds,” she said,
Alami pointed out that following the GAP method, Tamara can analyse the information ■ Tamara interacting with visitors at Al Arabiya stand during the 17th edition of Arab Media Forum in Dubai yesterday. gathered and detect fake news, as well as sort through and highlight news from authentic sources.
“Step 2: analyse, this is where I use tags to highlight the important pieces of information, my process is based on audience interest,” said the AI journalist in her monologue message.
Tamara can also formulate a story according to the desires andneeds of a journalist inthe
newsroom — whether it is to be a news report, a script for TV, or a post for social media, explained Alami. “She can also put together pictures and videos with the news piece if needed,” she added.
For the final stage, Tamara gives all the information to the journalist who decides how it is published.
Tamara, who is accessible to every journalist in the newsroom through their computers, will also have a robot assistant that walks around to help with the process.
“Al Arabiya will be the first to use the AI system in the Arab world. It is an enormous help to journalists, as you can imagine how much time one needs to go through all these articles in order to detect fake news, all with a high margin of error. Tamara would be able to do that accurately in a millisecond,” said Alami.
Tamara can also formulate a story according to the desires and needs of a journalist in the newsroom— whether it is to be a news report, a script for TV, or a post for social media.