California Newspaper Creates AI-Powered 'News Assistant' for Kamala Harris Info (sfchronicle.com) 87
After nearly 30 years of covering Kamala Harris, the San Francisco Chronicle is now letting ChatGPT do it. Sort of...
"We're introducing a new way to engage with our decades of coverage: an AI-powered tool designed to answer your questions about Harris' life, her journey through public service and her presidential campaign," they announced this week: Drawing from thousands of articles written, edited and published by Chronicle journalists since 1995, this tool aims to give readers informed answers about a politician who rose from the East Bay and is now campaigning to become one of the world's most powerful people.
Why don't we have a similar tool for Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president? The answer isn't political. It's because we've been covering Harris since her career began in the Bay Area and have an archive of vetted articles to draw from. Our newsroom can't offer the same level of expertise when it comes to the former president.
The tool's answers are "drawn directly from decades of extensive reporting," according to a notice toward the bottom of the page. "The tool searches through thousands of Chronicle articles, with new stories added every hour as they are published, ensuring readers have access to the most up-to-date information." Our news assistant is powered by OpenAI's GPT-4o mini model, combined with OpenAI's text-embedding-3-large model, to deliver precise answers based on user queries. The Chronicle articles in this tool's corpus span from April 24, 1995, to the present, covering the length of Harris' career.
This corpus wouldn't be possible without the hard work of the Chronicle's journalists.
Questions go through OpenAI's moderation filter and "relevance check" — and if it asks how to vote, "we redirect readers to appropriate resources including canivote.org..."
"We're introducing a new way to engage with our decades of coverage: an AI-powered tool designed to answer your questions about Harris' life, her journey through public service and her presidential campaign," they announced this week: Drawing from thousands of articles written, edited and published by Chronicle journalists since 1995, this tool aims to give readers informed answers about a politician who rose from the East Bay and is now campaigning to become one of the world's most powerful people.
Why don't we have a similar tool for Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president? The answer isn't political. It's because we've been covering Harris since her career began in the Bay Area and have an archive of vetted articles to draw from. Our newsroom can't offer the same level of expertise when it comes to the former president.
The tool's answers are "drawn directly from decades of extensive reporting," according to a notice toward the bottom of the page. "The tool searches through thousands of Chronicle articles, with new stories added every hour as they are published, ensuring readers have access to the most up-to-date information." Our news assistant is powered by OpenAI's GPT-4o mini model, combined with OpenAI's text-embedding-3-large model, to deliver precise answers based on user queries. The Chronicle articles in this tool's corpus span from April 24, 1995, to the present, covering the length of Harris' career.
This corpus wouldn't be possible without the hard work of the Chronicle's journalists.
Questions go through OpenAI's moderation filter and "relevance check" — and if it asks how to vote, "we redirect readers to appropriate resources including canivote.org..."
Her actual life ... (Score:2, Insightful)
... is interesting indeed (Willie Brown, etc.) A journey through public service indeed.
Certainly more interesting than the hopey, changey, newly sprung from the head of Zeuss story that we get instead.
Re:Her actual life ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, eerything that was so interesting from the 2020 cycle has been memory holed. Her playing the "I was that little girl" card to jab at Biden as a racist, only to gladly become his VP at the drop of a hat. Even now after all the drama it's still clear they don't even like each other, to put it mildly.
The dems no longer even pretend to represent the working class.. they are now proudly a party that caters to college-educated white people, and are hoping they can cling back that majority of white women who voted for Trump in 2016.
Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re: Her actual life ... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Has the liberal media not demonized Ron Desantis as hard, we may not have been here.
Ron's presidential campaign fizzled because anyone who has been paying attention knows that Ron has no actual substance underneath his culture war veneer. Plus, the guy is my age; he doesn't remember the "good ol' days" when America was ostensibly more great than it is now - he's just doing a weak imitation of Trump. Why would anyone want the cheap Wish.com version of a candidate when they can vote for the original? There's also the whole Florida is the laughingstock of the country thing too, and I shoul
Re: (Score:2)
DeSantis ran as "Trump-lite", going for the same demographic as Donald Trump.
That might've worked if Trump had a heart attack, leaving only Ron and Nikki in the race.
But he stood no chance if Trump stayed in the race.
Re: (Score:2)
The Democrats have to start letting primaries matter again.
The Democratic primaries mattered in 1972, and McGovern lost 49 states.
The primary process sucks at nominating electable candidates.
We need to move to RCV and/or open primaries.
Re:Her actual life ... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's expensive. The value of some degrees is cratering. Many perceive universities across the US to be hostile to certain political persuasions.
Re: Her actual life ... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
The value of some degrees is cratering.
A college degree is worth more than ever if you're smart and major in STEM.
A college degree is worth less than ever if you're not so bright and major in arts or humanities.
If you have a two-digit IQ (and half the population does), learning a trade like plumbing or welding is a better investment.
Many perceive universities across the US to be hostile to certain political persuasions.
Meh. I had no idea about the politics of most of my professors.
Disclaimer: I can weld and do plumbing.
Re: Her actual life ... (Score:1)
I wouldn't trust a low IQ welder or plumber.
Re: (Score:1)
Many perceive universities across the US to be hostile to certain political persuasions.
Well, given that "certain political persuasions" seem to see science as the enemy and believe invented "alternative facts" deserve as much weight as real facts... yeah, of course any decent university is going to be hostile towards them.
Re: Her actual life ... (Score:2)
Yeah...the cartoon version of $other_side is so much better than reality. With reality you have to contend with all their objections on merit and may have concede some things.
With the cartoon version you get to ascribe the stupidest argument for the craziest position those guys take to everyone and ignore the whole lot of them as subhuman primitives who need to be ruled over for their own good.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Her actual life ... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, some more taxes. Rome had fucking taxes. Not communism. Not remotely communism. The democratic party has been actively disinfranchising its own left--they made an example out of that one "democratic socialist" and his followers--and now there is no real anti-imperialist voice in the legislature who is a democrat, and no dems who criticize the security state. The dem party isn't an ally of unions, either. Those are three fundamental pillars of the left in the US, and the democratic party has fled all of
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Her actual life ... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
the actual left in the US is no longer welcome or represented in the federal legislature or executive branch.
Running a campaign is expensive. Most wealthy folks don't want to see their wealth redistributed, so they're less likely to donate to far-left candidates. Hence, the US has ended up with a right-leaning centrist party and a regressive conservative party. Anyone who claims otherwise needs to be politely reminded that the USA is pretty much the only developed country without a national healthcare-for-all system.
Re: (Score:2)
The trades pay better. And there is a group of software practitioners (particularly on the dev/coder side) who believe that college is next to useless. OTJ training or picking stuff up as a hobby is where it's at. And industry tends to agree with them.
The other point is that lumping college attendance together tends to hide the huge political chasm between STEM professions and the liberal arts/climate science groups. There are quite a few Trump supporters in engineering and similar schools.
Re: (Score:3)
The trades pay better.
If you're willing to relocate to a state where you can join a union (spoiler alert: it will probably be a blue state) and don't mind doing backbreaking work which will take a toll on your body, yeah, certain trades can pay very well.
On the other hand, if you think you'll just live in Florida and skip college because you can make bank doing HVAC work. Hah. Good one. Seriously, go on /r/HVAC on Reddit and ask some folks who are actually in the trenches what they're bringing home every week. Sure, the guy
Re: Her actual life ... (Score:1)
When was the last time your degree was relevant to any recruiter (hint: they really do not care)
Re: (Score:2)
it's still clear they don't even like each other
She whipped out the race card at the first debate.
Then Biden appointed her "immigration czar", the worst possible assignment. That was a knife to the kidneys.
After that, they seemed "even" and got along okay.
Biden is helping her reelection campaign by keeping a low profile.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)
Still far better than the clueless [imgur.com] idiot [imgur.com] .
Re: (Score:2)
Wow. I shudder to think of what ChatGPT would make of the word-salad in the second example you gave. It would turn AI into a gibbering fool.
For context, Trump was saying something about pollution from China. And then he went on to rail against windmills and push for coal-mining and oil-drilling.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/tru... [yahoo.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Wow. I shudder to think of what ChatGPT would make of the word-salad in the second example you gave. It would turn AI into a gibbering fool.
For context, Trump was saying something about pollution from China. And then he went on to rail against windmills and push for coal-mining and oil-drilling.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/tru... [yahoo.com]
And yet, it's just one of many unhinged [tumblr.com], stumbling [snopes.com], bumbling [imgur.com], rambling [imgur.com] nonsense [imgur.com] he spouts. A clear sign of age related mental senility.
Re: Her actual life ... (Score:2)
Oh bullshit. He's as crazy as he ever was.
Re: Her actual life ... (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
They're going to refuse to certify [axios.com] his re-election, except it won't be called insurrection when they do it.
Re: (Score:2)
They're going to refuse to certify [axios.com] his re-election, except it won't be called insurrection when they do it.
If Republicans can do it [nbcnews.com], why not Democrats? And it's not an "insurrection". It's a bunch of whiny crybabies who who don't like democracy.
Re: (Score:2)
Your source there is almost 2.5 years old. Unsurprisingly, the world has progressed since then, and unsurprisingly, the Republicans you complained about were legally right: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/0... [nytimes.com]
Re: (Score:2)
So after he wins the election, is there a support group for liberal midwits, or do you all plan to just scream impotently at the sky again?
Yeah, it's called the mid-terms. That's when all the surprised Pikachu faced Democrat voters will relegate Trump to lame duck status for the remaining two years of his term.
If you're trying to decide between Trump & Har (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
go read some quotes from Trump
Some of his supporters actually go to his rallies, where they're getting it unfiltered right from the horse's mouth. I tried to watch one of his rallies back in 2016 just to gain some insight into why some people like him; I couldn't tolerate more than a few minutes before I had to turn it off.
The one that struck me hard (Score:1)
Like he's lying to your face and you know he's lying your face because you're right there and you just kind of go along with it emperor's new clothes style.
I don't even know what you do with that kind of cult except hope that it passes after the election
Re: (Score:2)
Certainly more interesting than the hopey, changey, newly sprung from the head of Zeuss story that we get instead.
What on earth are you talking about? All anyone talks about is how she slept with Willie Brown, you included. And yet somehow you think no one talks about that? Turn your brain on.
Re: (Score:1)
Nobody in the MSM talks about her connection to Willie Brown.
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody in the MSM talks about her connection to Willie Brown.
You are a liar and wrong:
https://www.foxnews.com/politi... [foxnews.com]
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news... [msn.com]
https://www.newsweek.com/megyn... [newsweek.com]
https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
Re: (Score:2)
LOL you won't see that on the Sunday morning talkshows or in the debates (actually debate singular), and it isn't an active story on any of their 24/7 coverage or nightly news broadcasts.
It isn't played on talk radio, even the conservative talking heads are barely talking about it anymore. They'll bring it up occasionally, but it's obvious by now that nobody's gonna do much about her past with Brown or how Harris got into politics.
That Reuters article was from 2020, the Fox article is from 2019, and the Ne
Re: (Score:2)
It isn't played on talk radio, even the conservative talking heads are barely talking about it anymore. They'll bring it up occasionally
OK, you lied, you admit it. Good job.
Re: (Score:1)
So, a SF Chronicle search-engine then? (Score:3)
If it's "trained" from articles in the Chronicle about Kamala Harris, then presumably it reflects the editorial stance of the publication over the time starting in 1995. Sounds useful, but like all things in the media, you shouldn't get your info from just one source.
Ground level truth (Score:5, Informative)
If it's "trained" from articles in the Chronicle about Kamala Harris, then presumably it reflects the editorial stance of the publication over the time starting in 1995. Sounds useful, but like all things in the media, you shouldn't get your info from just one source.
Getting news from both sides is no longer sufficient, I'm finding that I have to literally go to ground level truth.
An example from this morning's news, the article on the left says: "Lawsuit says Virginia is illegally purging legitimate voters off the rolls" [AP]
Sounds pretty bad, eh?
And the article on the right says: "Biden-Harris DOJ Sues Virginia For Removing Noncitizens From Voter Rolls" [TGP].
Well, that sounds like a douche move from the DOJ, doesn't it?
Right now (about 12 hours later) some of the news sites are using more informative headlines, but this morning there was a stark divide between what the right said and what the left said.
The truth, found only by going to ground level this morning, is that Virginia has connected their voting registration to the driver's license database, and automatically removing people who identify (on their driver's license) as non-US citizen.
The National Voter Registration Act (Section 8(c)(2)) states that there's a "quiet period" of 3 months before the election, voters can't be removed during this period. That's what the DOJ is complaining about.
Virginia responded by saying that a Virginia state law requires that they purge non-citizens from the voting rolls.
(There's also some claim that the driver license database is full of erroneous information and the purge will drop lots of legitimate voters.)
(Additionally, the constitution says that voting is controlled by the states, so it's not clear to me that federal law can override a state law like this. Most of the federal control over voting was made explicit by constitutional amendment: women voting, ex-slave voting, 18 year old voting, and so on. Can someone with law experience fact check this for me?)
It's clear to me that this is a contentious issue and there are arguable points on both sides...
Be sure to go to ground level truth before you come to a decision.
We're all living in Plato's cave here.
Re:Ground level truth (Score:5, Insightful)
The National Voter Registration Act (Section 8(c)(2)) states that there's a "quiet period" of 3 months before the election, voters can't be removed during this period.
That's a loophole which needs fixing. It's legal in some states to register up to 30 days prior to the election. In a few, registration on election day is possible.
So, all the non-citizens (and felons, etc.) need to do is to wait until the 90 day period is up and then register. Uncontested.
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously non-citizens cannot vote legally. But felons can in many states. Here's some info regarding the effect of federal convictions on voting rights. [uscourts.gov]
Re: Ground level truth (Score:1)
Sure, not legally, but they found hundreds of people that did anyway. May not be a big difference for the national level, but locally, elections often hinge on 10 or less votes.
Re: (Score:2)
What you wrote doesn't make any sense.
Try reading it again. And move your lips this time.
Re: (Score:2)
What do you mean by going to "ground level truth?" Do you mean this site? [ground.news] Or something else?
I think you're right in general that the individual states control voting, not the feds. However, I assume that the Federal DOJ sued Virginia in Virginia State court, no?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
If you don't have investigative skills, you can obtain information from sites that do. These, for example:
https://www.snopes.com/ [snopes.com]
https://adfontesmedia.com/ [adfontesmedia.com]
https://ground.news/ [ground.news]
And I don't think that both sides are "absolute liars". Even the worst disinformers (you know who I mean) sometimes insert portions of the truth to make their claims seem credible. And sometimes people get things wrong without meaning to deceive.
Again, as you say, you must investigate. Investigative skills are nice to have, but you can
Re: (Score:2)
And I don't think that both sides are "absolute liars". Even the worst disinformers (you know who I mean) sometimes insert portions of the truth to make their claims seem credible.
Hmmm. This is an argument about the definition of a word, but point taken, thanks.
Re: (Score:2)
Fair enough. And you're welcome.
Ground level techniques (Score:2)
What do you mean by going to "ground level truth?" Do you mean this site? [ground.news] Or something else?
I think you're right in general that the individual states control voting, not the feds. However, I assume that the Federal DOJ sued Virginia in Virginia State court, no?
What do you mean by going to "ground level truth?"
No specific site, such as the one you mentioned.
What I meant is that when some news article talks about a lawsuit or supreme court decision, I have to go to the actual document and read it. If they say "Trump said *this*" or "Kamala said *that*", I have to see/hear the actual video. When something becomes an internet meme, I look up the actual image.
I've found that local news reports are usually a good source of ground-level facts. The local report talks about what happened, who died, why police were called
Can you post more information? (Score:2)
How do I know? Because the citizenship laws target college kids who are out of state and don't have access to the paperwork needed to register. That's what all this "non citizen" nonsense is about. It's about denying college kids who want to register to vote the right to vote.
I'm not sure I understand your point here.
College students can register to vote in (only one of) their home state or their college state.
I'm not sure how kids out of state don't have access to the paperwork needed to register. Can't they go to the local voter registry office in their college town and register to vote?
If Virginia is purging non-US citizens, how does that affect college students? If the student is non-US citizen, what's the difference?
You seem to have a strong statement here, but I'm not unde
College students don't have their paperwork (Score:1)
So the entire process exists to make it difficult or impossible for out of state college students to register to vote because they're not in the position where they can provide those documents.
They could of course work with their parents to get those documents and then get them back to where they need to be but that's difficult and complex and it's easy to mess up and it's
Re: There's nothing contentous about it (Score:1)
Do you spin this kind of misinformation on yourself or do you have a feed? College kids still count as citizens. If it affects Democrats to have voters that are ineligible removed from the voter rolls, perhaps you are admitting mass fraud is common with that party?
Re: (Score:2)
Because the citizenship laws target college kids who are out of state and don't have access to the paperwork
I just read the VA website. They are clear on college students. There aren't any unusual barriers present. You register. You check that you are formerly registered in another state. You show an ID of residence in VA which can be your college ID or your utility bill. Dorm addresses are acceptable. Explain the scenario in detail how there is suppression of college voters who come from out of state.
Remember the goal here (Score:1)
This Target's college kids because they often don't have all their paperwork correct. And it's difficult for them to get that paperwork correct. In this specific case anyone who wasn't flagged as a citizen in the DMV records gets purged. It's likely to be college kids because they're likely to have IDs that aren't as complete as a full driver's licen
Oh, yeah... (Score:3)
There's no way THIS could go south...
Think I'm gonna run to the store and stock up on extra popcorn.
Everything we're dying to know about Harris (Score:4, Funny)
"Not a thing comes to mind."
Re: (Score:1)
Pretty much the way I feel. Harris would need to be *extremely* bad before I wouldn't vote for her. I really despise Trump. I do wish we had instant runoff, though. Then I might consider whether Harris is worth a vote...in other than 3rd or 4th place.
Re: (Score:2)
Spoiler alert: She's worse than you think. It's why she dropped out of the 2020 race well before the first primary. Like Tim Walz said, we can't afford four more years of 5+% inflation (average), wars breaking out across the world, massive increases in crime (taking us back to levels last seen when Bill Clinton was president and Dems had to tack hard to hard-on-crime rhetoric), record-setting levels of borrowing and spending, a terrible job market, and more.
California newspaper creates... (Score:2)
...useless crap generator in order to show that they are fully and completely onboard the AI hype train
A NY newspaper could do this about Trump & fat (Score:1)
A New York newspaper could do this about the local history of Trump and his father.
Re: A NY newspaper could do this about Trump & (Score:1)
They could, but when Trump was a Democrat and ran for President as a Democrat (up to about a decade ago) coverage was pretty positive from the MSM.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Pedophile?" Look, Trump may have had the hots for his daughter for awhile now, but I don't think he's a pedophile. All of his sexual victims^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hpartners appear to have been women of legal age.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not limited to one source, either.
I wonder... (Score:1)
Would some of you who are eagerly pointing out Harris' par-for-politician defects tell us what you think of Trump's steaming pile of beyond-the-pale defects?
Re: (Score:2)
It's like a choice between Kang and Kodos.