site.btaUPDATED BTA Director General: AI Will Never Replace Natural Communication

In his opening remarks at the Association of Balkan News Agencies - Southeast Europe (ABNA-SE) 32nd General Assembly and Conference here on Wednesday, BTA Director General Kiril Valchev spoke about the role artificial intelligence (AI) could play in the job of the journalist in the future. At the forum, which is taking place between September 3 and 6, Valchev stated that AI could never replace the natural communication between people.

Valchev said to imagine having computers trying to calculate what the heads of news agencies would say in advance was inconceivable, especially in a place like the Balkans where emotions have always been a leading factor in communicating. He added that AI replacing God's creation, the human being, was also unimaginable.

The head of BTA pointed out that professions such as journalists that work with large databases can save time, if they utilize AI. It is important, however, to note that AI cannot replace a live reporter on the scene, since AI works with previously accumulated knowledge but cannot cover live news. "New technologies can only complement journalists, not replace them," he added.

Valchev listed some of the benefits that media could see from using AI, such as helping their consumers navigate through the ocean of news, facilitating the exchange of news articles between agencies that use different languages, finding common points between different news articles, facilitating the process of combining different formats used to present the news, improving the accessibility of the news agencies' databases and more.

The Director General of BTA was adamant that AI could never replace human cooperation or turn ABNA-SE into a computer controlled by algorithms. He proceeded to praise ABNA-SE for its progress of having been registered as a legal entity in Sofia, which is an honour for BTA.

Valchev spoke about Italy's national news agency ANSA joining ABNA-SE in 2023 and added that work is underway to have news agencies of Serbia and Moldova join in as well.

He ended his speech with an extract from a poem by Bulgarian writer Hristo Fotev who was born in Istanbul 90 years ago:

The most important thing is to dare.

To overcome your fear — to jump…

Valchev also took part in Wednesday's first panel entitled "AI's Role in Shaping Media's Perspective". He will participate in Thursday's General Assembly as well.

Among the forum attendees were Turkiye's Minister of Industry and Technology Mehmet Fatih Kacir and Serdar Karagoz, head of the ABNA-SE and Anadolu Agency Director General.