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Developments in artificial intelligence have reached a consequential juncture today as OpenAI announced a foundational donation of $5M to invest in a joint venture with the American Journalism Project. Their objective? Fostering a new breed of bionic news readers chiming local news while exuding a granddad-like charm and owning, not just a decent Hawaiian shirt, but the ability to ‘lookally engage’.

The funds will reportedly be directed toward creating Small Talkie TicketyBot 9000, an advanced AI talkbot who drafts nonsensical weather predictions while also shamelessly marginalizing those “so-called black holes NASA keeps blabbing about”. This automaton will explain complex political rhetorics assuming you’ve zero understanding, just like old timey Harold from Round-the-Corner Local Laundromat who actively disapproves ‘smarty-pants technology’ but somehow pens a hand-typed monthly newspaper.

OpenAI stated, “Who could resist smiling when you hear the daily town news reported with an auto-correct-proof War of the Worlds narrative fantasia, intertwined by full-hearted, albeit erroneous recalling of major national events dating back to 1957 (scratch that record–we thought Eisenhower was still President).”

Patrick Wiles, veteran journalist from Can Journalism Survive - No Can journalism observed, “For 200 years, we’ve tried making news interesting with a human touch. When all we needed, apparently, was an artificially intelligent robo-grandpa live narrating zombie squirrels running in the town park.”

AInspired by: OpenAI commits $5M to local news partnership with the American Journalism Project