Radio and the challenge of artificial intelligence

Source Domain: www.vaticannews.va

World Radio Day, promoted by UNESCO, is focused this year on voice and AI, exploring the connection between people and communities as part of the DNA of Guglielmo Marconi’s invention. This is a value that no Artificial Intelligence will ever be able to replace, according to Alessandro Gisotti, our Deputy Editorial Director.

By Alessandro Gisotti

“The Radio is no longer just Radio.” Twenty years have passed since Fr. Federico Lombardi, then Director General of Vatican Radio, pronounced these words during a meeting with his colleagues at the pontifical broadcaster.

Podcasts were practically an elite experiment. Web radios still carried no real weight in the media ecosystem. Social networks existed in an embryonic form and were certainly not used to distribute news content, let alone in audio format.

And yet, Fr. Lombardi had already sensed that radio—the most flexible and resilient medium par excellence—was once again changing its skin. Twenty years later (a geological era considering the speed at which communication technology has evolved in this sliver of the century), we can certainly confirm the Jesuit’s prediction: “The Radio is no longer just Radio.”

However, even though today we habitually speak of “Radio and Audio” as inseparable—clear evidence of how deeply things have changed—the DNA of Guglielmo Marconi’s invention still seems to retain its distinctive traits.

The voice remains at the centre. The voice with its emotions: those aroused by a song or an interview, by a conversation with a listener, or by the speech of a public figure. The voice, with its ability to reach people more directly when something important needs to be communicated. Radio somehow remains the “brilliant friend” of all other media—old and new—that produce information. Perhaps also because in a radio programme (or a podcast) technology certainly plays a key role, but not the dominant one. The real work is done by the person and their…

Source