Emerging journalists are joining the field as artificial intelligence threatens to dominate the field. Cognitive Science major and Brown and White journalist Rachel Gruber is researching how pre-professional journalists integrate AI into their work. By asking fellow journalists to mimic their workflow, Gruber is discovering what their answers can tell us about process and technology in the face of an ever evolving landscape. 

Before finalizing her research topic, Gruber collaborated with Haiyan Jia, associate professor of journalism, to explore the limitations of AI—particularly its capacity for empathy. Now, she is running a two-part study: first, a survey to assess perceptions and attitudes toward AI integration; and second, an hour-long observation session.

“We're trying to figure out how people not only use AI in their journalistic practices, but how they view AI,” Gruber explains. “Do they give credibility to the technology they're using when they're creating something? Do they think that the technology should get credibility? Would they like whatever task they're using AI for to be fully automated?” By mapping their co-intelligence, Gruber is visualizing their mental model of the AI application they're using or the generative AI they're interacting with.

Young journalists, like those in the Brown and White, are often tech-savvy, having grown up with technology. And as they prepare to enter the workforce, Gruber is exploring how journalists not only use AI, but how social and cultural factors, such as newsroom norms and guidelines, shape their cognitive response to generative AI.

In a way, pre-professional journalists are responsible for building ethical, sustainable practices to protect what makes the field so integral to society, Gruber notes. She ran the community section of the Brown and White, getting to know the Lehigh Valley and building connections in the South Side. 

“I've seen so much of how journalists can impact a community in a positive way,” she says. “Seeing that and meeting so many awesome people from the community around Lehigh has been why I want to do this research to protect it.”

Before AI dominated the scene, Gruber has always been interested in understanding why people do what they do. “I'm someone who just loves to talk to people,” she says. “And I think part of that is understanding people's motivations and getting to know them on a more personal level.”