CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – The radio industry trade magazines were buzzing yesterday about Super Hi-Fi. It’s an artificial intelligence radio company that will soon provide weather forecasts for radio stations. It will be completely automated. Artificial intelligence looks at computer data and does the forecasting, and then an AI voice reads the forecast onair.
Yet, I’m not worried.
It begs the question “Is predicting the weather science or art?” I think the correct answer is a little of both. And artificial intelligence will never get the “art” part right. All forecasters essentially use the same data. It’s how they interpret it… when to deviate from what the computer models say… that separates the good forecasters from the average ones. AI will always be average. It just regurgitates what the data says.
Each winter we have storms where the snowfall is different from 5 or 10 miles away. Mosinee gets more than Wausau. Rhinelander gets a direct hit, not Tomahawk. And it is years of human experience that gets the forecast right.
The weather and news and talk that we provide here comes down to trust. Justin Lowe and Tony Schumacher are the finest forecasters in Central Wisconsin. You’ve known them over a period of years. They’re always going to attract a larger audience than AI-Ashley or AI-Allen.
I think of how I put together a newscast. I do some of the writing… all of the story selection… and all of the on-air presenting. A computer can’t do what I do, even if artificial intelligence studied only me. They wouldn’t slot the news stories the way I do. A computer might mimic my voice, but it isn’t me. Anyone with a discerning ear would know the difference.
Artificial intelligence might be able to copy my writing style for these commentaries. But can it pick the topics I care about? The opinions it might share are only copies of things I’ve already written.
Communication – and that’s the business we’re in – will always be from one person, me, to other people, you. Don’t settle for anything less. It really isn’t the same.
Chris Conley
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