Gareth O'Callaghan: AI can never replace the journalist as a witness to human suffering

I can’t mimic the integrity of the human experience and the pursuit of its truth

Robert Fisk stands in front of a damaged building in the Damascus suburb of Douma, during a tour by Syria's Information Ministry to the town days after it was captured from rebels by Syrian government forces in 2018. File picture: Bassem Mroue/AP

Robert Fisk, the legendary war correspondent, once said that it’s a journalist’s job to be a witness to history. “War,” he wrote in The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, “represents a total failure of the human spirit”.

I was reminded of this recently —not so much the quote as the book —when I spent an afternoon with a group of media students. The conversation centred on whether the future of AI could endanger the integrity of traditional journalism.