Pere Vila

This paper presents the multidisciplinary work carried out in the RTVE-UGR Chair within the IVERES project, whose main objective is the development of a tool for journalists to verify the veracity of the audios that reach the newsrooms. In the current context, voice synthesis has both beneficial and detrimental applications, with audio deepfakes being a significant concern in the world of journalism due to their ability to mislead and misinform. This is a multifaceted problem that can only be tackled adopting a multidisciplinary perspective. In this article, we describe the approach we adopted within the RTVE-UGR Chair to successfully address the challenges derived from audio deepfakes involving a team with different backgrounds and a specific methodology of iterative co-creation. As a result, we present several outcomes including the compilation and generation of audio datasets, the development and deployment of several audio fake detection models, and the development of a web audio verification tool addressed to journalists. As a conclusion, we highlight the importance of this systematic collaborative work in the fight against misinformation and the future potential of audio verification technologies in various applications.

The irruption of artificial intelligence (AI) and automated technology has substantially changed the journalistic profession, transforming the way of capturing, processing, generating, and distributing information; empowering the work of journalists by modifying the routines and knowledge required by information professionals. This study, which conceptualizes the “exo journalism” on the basis of the impact of AI on the journalism industry, is part of a research project of the Observatory for Information Innovation in the Digital Society (OI2). The results, derived from documentary research supported by case studies and in-depth interviews, propose that AI is a source of innovation and personalization of journalistic content and that it can contribute to the improvement of professional practice, allowing the emergence of a kind of "exo journalist", a conceptual proposal that connects the possibilities of AI with the needs of journalism’s own productive routines. The end result is the enhancement of the journalist’s skills and the improvement of the news product. The research focuses on conceptualizing a kind of support and complement for journalists in the performance of their tasks based on the possibilities of AI in the automatic generation of content and data verification.