A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never be allowed to make a management decision.” The quote comes from an International Business Machines (IBM) manual published in 1979, and it grows more relevant every day.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become commonplace more quickly than regulations can keep up, making the dystopian sci-fi future that likely inspired the above quote feel eerily possible.
Its rise, however rapid, doesn’t seem to be happening organically. A Pew Research Center report from March 2026 showed that half of U.S. adults are more concerned than excited about the effects of AI on society, followed by 38% who are equally concerned and excited.
Most of the concern they cited revolved around its effects on human creativity and relationships.
There is enough to say on this topic to fuel a lifetime of study, and it likely will. The rise of AI has already sparked philosophical debates on what constitutes personality and artistic expression, as well as changes to the political landscape and natural environment.
For this staff’s part, this column will focus on AI within the field of journalism.
The ethos of journalism as a whole is to expose the truth and make information accessible. However, trust in news reporting has reached new lows as of October of last year; according to a Gallup poll, only 8% of Republicans and 27% of Independents said they trust mass media “a good deal or fair amount,” while 51% of Democrats said they did.
In 2026, AI takes an already polarized, distrustful populace and muddies the channels of information even further. People simply don’t know what to believe, and adding AI-generated images and articles to the mix is like dumping gasoline onto a fire.
Journalists should be held to high standards and continually maintain their credibility. Their audience has the right to question them. But in a world of AI, the things we should be able to depend on as “proof” such as photos and recordings are no longer reliable.
This has wider implications in the world of crime and corruption. In a world of increasingly sophisticated AI, how does one prove–or disprove–anything?
Credibility is diminished or even destroyed when a reporter is found to have used AI. A journalist should be able to interpret raw, factual data and translate it for their audience without injecting their own bias–something AI has not been able to replicate.
AI knows how to promote and advertise, but it does not know how to be unbiased. Large-language models (LLMs) are programmed to agree, make its current user happy and create a repeat customer.
This is in wide contrast to the job of a journalist who may handle delicate, even tragic or gruesome stories. The work requires the “human element” and constant interrogation of the ethics involved.
AI also does not always yield reliable results. An LLM or Google overview will sooner produce false answers than no answers, meaning no discerning researcher should present these findings as fact. Any journalist who does this earns every bit of the public’s distrust.
Aside from the ethical catastrophe it presents, AI-generated writing is just plain bad. It can check the boxes of a prompt and fill a word count, but if a reader examines the writing closely, they will quickly find that it is vague, monotonous and missing a crucial note of relatability.
This is more subtle in certain cases than others, especially as models integrate the option to “humanize” text, but it is nearly always detectable. There is a reason AI-generated content is commonly referred to as “slop.”
At this early stage in AI’s evolution, The Clarion has a zero-tolerance policy for its use. Student journalists need to practice the skills of real research and interpretation in order to meet the high standards of the field we are entering.
Every article and design on these pages is a product of human skill, and readers are always encouraged to open a dialogue if they suspect otherwise.
The Clarion Staff
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