USC Annenberg Relevance Report

At the beginning of this year, we coined the term “AI-nxiety” in our annual trend report, The 2023 Predictionary , to reflect “the unease about the overarching ramifications of AI on human creativity and ingenuity.” By the time you read this, AI will have already become far more tangible, scary and exciting. The growth rate of AI’s adoption and capability is completely unprecedented...

Unless you’ve been on an extended digital detox, you know that communications are no exception to the integration of generative artificial intelligence. I wondered how the machines and humans thought about these changes. When I asked ChatGPT how AI would affect the professional communications function, it revealed a plethora (ChatGPT’s word, I would have said “a ton”) of possibilities. When I...

When I started my communications career my first manager told me that our work was doubly hard. Not only did I need to master the discipline of communications, but I also needed to master the work of the broader organizations if I wanted to be an effective counselor, and really drive impact. Understanding comms while deeply understanding the business is a principle I’ve tried to live with ever...

AI has helped people. That’s the most important starting point. For instance, it has made programming less tedious and programmers more productive.

And yet AI also inspired remarkable fears, with some of the central creators and sellers of AI systems warning that it could cause human extinction. AI COULD do great harm, through campaigns of deepfakes that undermine society but only if...

Let me be transparent here. Much of this Relevance Report entry uses generative AI — specifically ChatGPT. Generative AI is here to stay and its impact on our daily lives is everywhere. As the use of generative AI grows, so will debates — pro and con — in post-secondary institutions of higher learning. As many of us already know, AI is all about change, which is not always easy for highly...

In a world of mixed hues and moods where PR practitioners scale corporate stares with care — basking in our collective potential, aspiring to be consequential — we have yet to view the complexity of AI through mirrors in our rear view. I was in my sister’s living room, listening to my nephew spew an interesting rap, reading it from the screen of his iPad. As a Black woman and prior slam poet, I...

It’s as if Gutenberg’s printing press got a serious upgrade — an algorithmic boost. Imagine walking into a modern newsroom and feeling the electricity in the air, a charge not just fueled by a relentless pursuit for authentic stories, but also by the whir of algorithms processing important data at speeds once deemed unimaginable. We stand at an intersection of history and innovation, where...

In the legal drama “ Suits ,” recently revived on Netflix, the character Louis Litt seethes with resentment as he grinds away at his cutthroat corporate law firm. Though he puts in more hours and brings in bigger clients, his slicker rival gets promoted ahead of him.

For the Louis Litts of the world, artificial...