Six provocations from Reuters Institute researcher Felix Simon: The low-hanging fruit of AI in journalism has been picked, human-in-the-loop is becoming a polite fiction, and “responsible AI” labels won’t fix the trust problem.
- Felix Simon presented six provocations at Nordic AI in Media Summit 2026 arguing the easy AI wins in journalism are already done: transcription, translation, summarisation, copy-editing are table stakes, not advantages.
- The harder problems are structural: human-in-the-loop is becoming performative, AI may replace entry-level roles rather than just augmenting them, and audience trust in AI-produced news is lower than in almost any other sector.
- The useful frame here is that "responsible AI" labeling won't move the needle on trust because audiences judge AI in news through the lens of institutional trust, not just tool quality.
