When Reporters Don’t Want to Hear It

From an interview with robotics expert Noel Sharkey:

Isaac Asimov said that when he started writing about robots, the idea that robots were going to take over the world was the only story in town. Nobody wants to hear otherwise. I used to find when newspaper reporters called me and I said I didn’t believe AI or robots would take over the world, they would say thank you very much, hang up and never report my comments.

This brought back a memory from my SRI days, when I was regularly interviewed by reporters. I remember a reporter called me on the day of some big news, wanting my take.

The normal routine would be for me to provide a pithy quote, which the reporter would use as the voice of an independent expert. But half-way through my commentary, his keyboard stopped clickety-clacking. “That doesn’t get me where I need to go,” he sulked, more to himself than me.

My take was contrarian. Reporters usually like that, but apparently the expert slot in this story was tailored for a concurring opinion. The reporter was on deadline, as most are when they call. It ended up being easier for him to find another expert than to redo the story.

I’m not naming the reporter because this incident was an exception. He was a quality reporter who later became the technology bureau chief for one of the biggest U.S. papers. The lesson: even top-tier reporters can succumb to finding only the facts and opinions for the story they want to tell.

The good news is, I rarely had this kind of expereince. But then again, I wasn’t daring to question whether robots would take over the world.