Can AI replace journalists? Il Foglio puts machine-generated news to the test
An Italian newspaper has published a world-first edition produced solely by artificial intelligence. The initiative by Il Foglio is part of a month-long experiment designed to explore the impact of AI on journalism, Kazinform News Agency reports.
Il Foglio AI is described as the first fully AI-generated daily newspaper, created entirely through artificial intelligence for writing, structuring, and even “for the irony.”
As Il Foglio noted, “We journalists will limit ourselves to asking the questions, in the AI Sheet we will read all the answers. And it will help us, so we still don't know if it is natural or artificial, to explain how artificial intelligence can be made to move from the gaseous state, that of theory, to the solid one, that of practice.”
The AI-generated edition is planned to run four days a week for a full month. Each edition will consist of four pages featuring 22 articles and three editorials. Il Foglio says it “will be even more optimistic than the traditional Sheet, will sometimes get into controversy with the line of our newspaper and will surprise you.” At the end of the experiment, the publication will assess its impact on their workflow and approach to journalism.
The first edition covered global and national topics and is also now available online. The articles are structured, clear, and grammatically correct but lack direct quotes from human sources, a major difference from traditional journalism.
The front page featured articles on Trump and Putin, another story highlighted a report by Italy’s national statistics agency, which pointed to salary increases for 750,000 workers as a result of recent tax reforms. Page two featured a lifestyle piece on the rise of “situationships” among young Europeans who are avoiding traditional relationships.
Editor of Il Foglio, Claudio Cerasa, emphasized that while the project is entirely AI-generated, it should not be seen as artificial but as an evolving form of intelligence.
Earlier, it was reported that the Spanish government has approved a bill imposing significant fines on companies that publish content generated by artificial intelligence without proper labeling.
