Chris Moran
Guardian's head of editorial innovation. Focusing on AI in the newsroom
- I love this piece from our brilliant lead engineer on newsroom AI, Joseph Smith. If you're non-technical but looking for a deeper understanding of how LLMs work beyond the basics, it's a fantastically clear and useful place to start medium.com/@joelochlann...
- This 40m video is a brilliant articulation of where we are now with LLMs and a thoughtful reflection on autonomy, agency, software and where we go next. I love the phrase "jagged intelligence" and using Memento's protagonist as an articulation of context windows. Do watch youtu.be/LCEmiRjPEtQ?...
- This is an excellent, thoughtful, nuanced piece on the role AI can play in writing www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/m...
- So much energy is being put into the long-term impact of GenAI on journalism and short-term issues like whether we're using the latest models. But this video illustrates the immediate crucial issue: do journalists have a basic grasp on the ways LLMs work? x.com/SamCoatesSky...
- “Secure Messaging is not just a tool for the Guardian. As part of our commitment to protecting the media and the public interest globally, the Guardian has published the source code for the technology that enables this system” www.theguardian.com/membership/2...
- Eeeessh. This really, really isn’t good. If user behaviour is changing so much and search is changing so much, and actually the changes are not really affecting clickthrough… why not let us see all that?
- Google won't be giving us performance report data in Search Console for AI Mode (or AI Overviews) even though AI Mode is the future of Google Search www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-mo...
- Google IO underlines that the battleground has moved from models as the competitive edge. This second age is about integration and with Workspace, Chrome, Search, Android and more (and the appetite to push Gemini everywhere), Google has a clear advantage www.theverge.com/news/669408/...
- As usual @polemicdigital.com is essential reading: “The theory is that extensive usage of LLMs drives increased Google usage with users wanting to verify the generative AI output with actual trusted sources, turning to Google to find those sources.” www.seoforgooglenews.com/p/googles-ai...
- Reposted by Chris MoranI wrote this piece on three serious challenges journalism faces right now and how AI may make them worse if we don't change course It is based on panels and private conversations in Perugia and includes my favourite quote from @chrismoranuk.bsky.social #ijf25 www.linkedin.com/pulse/journa...
- Reposted by Chris MoranAnd I should add a plug to the panel I organise with @chrismoranuk.bsky.social, @rubinafillion.nytimes.com & Tess Jeffers. Now the hard part: evaluating and integrating AI in newsrooms 14:00 - 14:50, Saturday 12/04/2025 – Teatro del Pavone buff.ly/NCJkUCN
- Reposted by Chris MoranThis is a thread of recent articles written for @techpolicypress.bsky.social that, I think, tell something of a story about AI and how we got to where we are.
- Only just started to play with NotebookLM's new Mind Maps feature, but for journalists trying to parse large documents or collections of them, it seems an interesting way of seeing the broad landscape and then getting into the detail by clicking a node, as an alternative to asking specific questions
- Innovation continues apace in the LLM world (where innovation = ruthlessly Sherlocking everyone else's features). Canvas is Claude's Artifacts feature. For those without access to Claude, it's undoubtedly a useful and versatile tool, especially for product ideation gemini.google/overview/can...
- Two things to highlight: the inevitability of this outcome (as predicted in GPT4's System Card) and the shrewd observation that LLMs, for all their benefits, are the perfect tool for endlessly voracious social platforms that prioritise novelty, triviality and outrage www.404media.co/ai-slop-is-a...
- “Students are not merely passive recipients of AI-generated content; instead, they are engaging actively with AI-based tools to augment their research processes, enhance comprehension, and construct well-informed, analytically-robust academic texts.” www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Chris MoranThis post is misleading. We were testing specifically to see whether the chatbots accurately identified the sources of excerpts from news articles. We did not intend to extrapolate these findings to the overall accuracy of the chatbots.
- This is worth reading if you’re interested in deep research AI tools: “Used uncritically, AI research assistants risk perpetuating a cycle where only easily discoverable sources are read and cited in research products” theimportantwork.substack.com/p/why-ai-ass...
- Excellent to see this gap covered. Previously saving your NotebookLM responses lost the elegant citations that make the tool as a whole so useful
- Reposted by Chris Moran🚨 @newscientist.com SCOOP: I've exclusively obtained Peter Kyle's interactions with ChatGPT using FOI laws - in what I believe may be a world-first transparency release. The chatbot said "Lack of Government or Institutional Support" slowed UK AI adoption www.newscientist.com/article/2472...
- I’m posting quite a lot less about incremental AI changes these days. But this is where most people’s eyes should be in terms of impact, risk and corporate power struggles. With models becoming less distinct and moats shrinking, it all becomes about integration and scale blog.google/products/sea...
- Reposted by Chris MoranI am delighted to share this new paper on AI collaboration in Chinese news organisations, led by @qingxiaohci.bsky.social, which has just been accepted at #CHI25. buff.ly/4gCc7hb
- Reposted by Chris MoranNew from 404 Media: anyone can push updates to the Doge.gov site. Two sources independently found the issue, one made their own decision to deface the site. "THESE 'EXPERTS' LEFT THEIR DATABASE OPEN." www.404media.co/anyone-can-p...
- This is a really thoughtful, balanced and interesting piece on practical, responsible ways that LLMs might make marking easier while retaining the core human skills that make it a valuable exercise substack.nomoremarking.com/p/the-human-...
- Reposted by Chris MoranPlease define 'chutzpah'
- Reposted by Chris MoranMy main take from the UK government's AI announcement as a journalist and a British sitcom obsessive is that tech teams always have a wicked sense of humour when naming their products www.gov.uk/government/n...
- Good call from Apple edition.cnn.com/2025/01/16/m...
- The ‘gift’ that just keeps giving. Here’s what I wrote about this the time before last www.linkedin.com/pulse/alerts...
- This is my periodic rant that Apple Intelligence is so bad that today it got every fact wrong its AI a summary of @washingtonpost.com news alerts. It's wildly irresponsible that Apple doesn't turn off summaries for news apps until it gets a bit better at this AI thing.
- Reposted by Chris MoranNEW: Meta has quietly dismantled the system that prevented misinformation from spreading in the United States. Machine-learning classifiers that once identified viral hoaxes and limited their reach have now been switched off, Platformer has learned www.platformer.news/meta-ends-mi...
- OpenAI’s economic blueprint: “Automobiles weren’t invented [in America]. But in the UK where some of the earliest cars were introduced, growth was stunted by regulation.” cdn.openai.com/global-affai...
- Reposted by Chris MoranThis was not, from the perspective of content creators, a terribly reassuring exchange. thecritic.co.uk/robot-dreams/
- Reposted by Chris MoranQuite right. I don't think this is about making MPs better at computer science; it's about rebuilding public sector technology assessment capacity. Used to be done in national labs and by regulators. With AI, the privatisation of expertise is the biggest challenge.
- What worries me is not government use of AI per se but the slightly credulous way that the government talk about it, which makes me suspect they will be taken for rubes by the tech companies selling their services. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
- The always essential RISJ Trends Report for 2025 is out today. "Multiple challenges in 2025 will likely include attacks from hostile politicians, economic headwinds, and battles to protect IP in the face of rapacious AI-driven platforms" reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/journalism-m...
- "We're gonna get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms. First, we're going to get rid of fact checkers." Oh marvellous. www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-...
- Reposted by Chris MoranMorning from the Yorkshire Dales! We have now entered day three snowed in at the Tan Hill Inn, Britain's highest pub
- Reposted by Chris MoranNew year, new blog post: I had a random question, what happens when LLMs are prompted to write better code, again and again? Do they actually write better code? The answer is yes*! minimaxir.com/2025/01/writ...
- Reposted by Chris MoranHere's my end-of-year review of things we learned out about LLMs in 2024 - we learned a LOT of things simonwillison.net/2024/Dec/31/... Table of contents:
- Reposted by Chris MoranIt’s three months since I launched London Centric, so here’s what’s happened and a little bit on what’s next. open.substack.com/pub/londonce...
- “Like all Netflix movies, Bubble and The Bubble floated away as quickly as they appeared, becoming tiles in the company’s sprawling mosaic of content, destined to be autoplayed on laptops whose owners have fallen asleep.” www.nplusonemag.com/issue-49/ess...
- “At best, they say, Orion performs better than OpenAI’s current offerings, but hasn’t advanced enough to justify the enormous cost of keeping the new model running.” www.wsj.com/tech/ai/open...
- Reposted by Chris MoranNew AI Snake Oil essay: Last month the AI industry's narrative suddenly flipped — model scaling is dead, but "inference scaling" is taking over. This has left people outside AI confused. What changed? Is AI capability progress slowing? We look at the evidence. 🧵 www.aisnakeoil.com/p/is-ai-prog...
- Reposted by Chris MoranThere are a LOT of ongoing AI copyright lawsuits in the US right now. We've been keeping track at @wired.com—and, to make things easier on everyone, created this interactive visual guide. It'll be updated w/ any major developments: www.wired.com/story/ai-cop...
- The moral of this story is not that genAI has no role to play around news, but that it requires a deep level of thought about what potential risks are. This should have been predictable for anyone with an ounce of knowledge about journalism and this technology www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
- "We hope our benchmark will spur industry-wide progress on factuality and grounding." deepmind.google/discover/blo...
- Reposted by Chris MoranGreat story by @melissahei.bsky.social et al on data use in AI training — with this graphic of particular interest to news publishers (because it shows an estimated proportion of news content vs other content)
- A few thoughts on Apple Intelligence, alerts and when summarisation goes wrong... www.linkedin.com/pulse/alerts...
- NotebookLM's very lovely new look is now live and there are some really positive improvements. Following soon are the new interactive podcast features which sound like fun blog.google/technology/g...
- Reposted by Chris MoranNEW on our website How 2024 shaped journalism. Dozens of insights from the Reuters Institute's work summarised by @eduardosuarez.bsky.social @matthewleake.bsky.social @marinaadami.bsky.social and Gretel Kahn Click to read reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/how-202...
- Went looking for accuracy disclaimer on Time AI and it's fascinating. Not visible on summaries, but deeper within UI. Emphasis on user responsibility, almost like alcohol, then another (not obvious) click required to find first clear admission that it may be inaccurate or out of date.
- Reposted by Chris MoranMy latest for @newscientist.bsky.social looks at a really interesting paper lead authored by an actual school student about the use of generative AI by children for schoolwork www.newscientist.com/article/2460...
- Reposted by Chris MoranThe "bias meter" sounds like an unproven use case for an unreliable technology offering a crude facade of objective critique that's useless because readers can think by themselves. But the button to plop out a ChatGPT counter-take for every op-ed may be even worse www.latimes.com/california/s...
- Interesting from Anthropic. Clio pulls together Claude use cases and cuts it in interesting ways. Beyond the major clusters below, some of the more interesting applications were: dream interpretation, disaster preparedness, D&D and … counting the Rs in strawberry www.anthropic.com/research/clio
- Reposted by Chris MoranI wrote a thing where I try and fail to contain my annoyance with untrustworthy billionaires talking about ‘fixing trust’ in news organizations with their poorly conceived AI driven bias-o-meters, and concessions to the right
- Can’t wait: ‘He explained that TCL’s AI movie and TV strategy would be informed and funded by targeted advertising, and that its content will “create a flywheel effect funded by two forces, advertising and AI.”’ www.404media.co/i-went-to-th...
- “Why not generate AI images of Jesus smoking weed with Santa Claus and harvest the last drops of juice from Facebook's corpse? Why not get involved in cryptocurrency speculation? What is keeping you from getting off your ass and drop-shipping baby products?” defector.com/the-hawk-tua...
- Well worth 38m of your time. Patterns and trends across thr internet in 2024 blog.cloudflare.com/radar-2024-y...
- Fascinated by this piece. But think it requires a wider view. If the basic argument is to take extreme care in using page views as a spur to commissioning, there is no argument. To bring long term value and protect and develop editorial character, clicks and likes can't be the driving force 1/
- "If the audience’s attention affects editorial decision-making, then we need to come to terms with the fact that the audience does not necessarily know what’s good for it," @jonaskaiser.bsky.social writes. "Instead, journalists need to consider what their audiences need."
- But not all metrics are equal. And the frame you place metrics in matters. At the Guardian we look at page views not as a target and not divorced from the context of the journalism. They matter because we want to find the widest, most relevant audience for the journalism we believe in /2
- Understanding the positive levers that result in a wider audience for low-facticity isn't just a nice thing, it's crucial to the journalistic act. And crucial to a newsroom that has the courage to lead readers in a direction they feel is important /3
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View full threadNo one should be audience-dependent. But newsrooms must understand that they are attempting ultimately to talk to humans. Audience analytics are fundamental to understanding which approaches help land the message that we're trying to communicate with the people we have to communicate with /5
- There are many ways in which AI and genAI can be used thoughtfully and helpfully in journalism. This isn't one of them www.theguardian.com/media/2024/d...
- I had problems with this beyond the binary representation of two sides. If the argument is that AI is unreliable, wonderful and dangerous (now and in the future) then it seems odd to end by complaining about people pointing out current dangers and limitations 1/ www.platformer.news/ai-skeptics-...
- For me, in a world in which LLM creators (and corps behind them) happily talk about ushering in an age of unlimited abundance, and people continue to think that LLMs can be used as search engines, having a few grumpy people pointing out that it can't count the rs in strawberry is pretty welcome 2/
- Reposted by Chris MoranThat was quite emotional. A final panel of our JournalismAI Festival. An incredible range of innovation and debate. Literally the best in the world. My team and the participants have covered every aspect. If you missed the live global debate catch up online. www.journalismai.info/festival
- Reposted by Chris MoranFeel like "fix the motion smoothing" should be replaced by "explain that ChatGPT isn't a search engine" when going home for the holidays now
- One of the most interesting aspects of genAI is the delivery mechanism to prompt usage. No surprise to see OpenAI look to browsers for that (having already moved on search), but building a good one and getting scale is no easy matter www.reuters.com/technology/a...
- Really enjoying the synthetic imagery nightmare fuel Taboola and others are increasingly serving up
- It’s the most wonderful time of the year. @tomwhitwell.bsky.social’s annual treat is as thought-provoking, funny and flat out interesting as ever medium.com/@tomwhitwell...
