It was honour to speak at Debate Club at Lawson Flats in Team Affirmative for “AI Kills Creativity”.
DEBATE CLUB @ LAWSON FLATS:
THE PANEL
Affirmative
Opposition
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Team Affirmative were voted the winner by the judges! Hooray!
My speech argued that the biggest risk AI poses to journalism isn’t simply job losses, it’s the gradual replacement of human curiosity and creativity with automated content production.
AI doesn’t have to replace journalists to damage journalism.
The bigger risk is that it makes human creativity less necessary, less valued, and less economically viable.
My speech explored what we risk losing as AI becomes increasingly involved in Australian media, from the work of science journalists and radio newsrooms to the ownership and value of creative work.
The issue isn’t whether AI can produce content. It can.
The question is whether we want a media industry producing more content but with less curiosity, originality, experimentation, and human insight.
Journalism begins with a question. It requires someone to notice what others missed, find the story nobody else has found, challenge the official version and ask: “Something doesn’t add up.”
AI can help journalists do that work.
It shouldn’t become the reason we no longer have journalists doing it.
Because if AI replaces the creative process itself, we could end up with more information, more content and more efficiency, but less creativity, less originality and fewer people discovering what nobody knows yet.
The future of journalism shouldn’t be humans versus machines.
It should be making sure machines never replace the most important thing a journalist brings to the job:
Curiosity.
