Aisvarya Chandrasekar

AI versus accuracy? We're willing to make the trade-off. When asking AI about the news, readers “know the answers they are getting are not perfect.” They keep asking anyway.

When asking AI about the news, readers “know the answers they are getting are not perfect.” They keep asking anyway.

@klaudia.bsky.social @aisvarya17.bsky.social

www.cjr.org/tow_center/a...

AI versus accuracy? We're willing to make the trade-off. When asking AI about the news, readers “know the answers they are getting are not perfect.” They keep asking anyway.

Research suggests people who use AI tools to find news seem to prefer them over clicking on individual stories, despite being conscious of their limits when it comes to accuracy. @aisvarya17.bsky.social and I wrote about what publishers can learn from this www.cjr.org/tow_center/a...

AI versus accuracy? We're willing to make the trade-off. When asking AI about the news, readers “know the answers they are getting are not perfect.” They keep asking anyway.

When asking AI about the news, readers “know the answers they are getting are not perfect.” They keep asking anyway. Read @klaudia.bsky.social and @aisvarya17.bsky.social of @towcenter.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/tow_center/a...

AI Chatbots Can Search the Web – So Why Don’t They? Why AI platforms should be accountable for misrepresenting breaking news

@aisvarya17.bsky.social and @klaudia.bsky.social:

People say they are turning to AI platforms for information-related queries.

While these tools are, in theory, capable of responding to queries about the news, they may not necessarily be optimized for those tasks.

www.cjr.org/tow_center/a...

AI Chatbots Can Search the Web – So Why Don’t They? Why AI platforms should be accountable for misrepresenting breaking news

When ChatGPT said that the US capture of Maduro didn't happen, Wired characterized it was "expected behavior." But @aisvarya17.bsky.social and I think AI platforms' failure to activate web search for a breaking news-related query is not expected, it's a product defect. www.cjr.org/tow_center/a...

the illustrations are stunning! Very cool site

Made a site comparing the sizes of living things :)

The great Julius Csotonyi spent 5 months painting over 60 illustrations for the site, no ai used

> neal.fun/size-of-life/

Today's additions:
- a commercial partnership that allows Google to test new experimental features
- new licensing partners for Gemini
- a deal between ProRata and the Danish Press Publications’ Collective Management Organization

Research Tools: New Tracker From Tow Center for Digital #Journalism "Monitors Developments Between News #Publishers and #AI Companies" www.infodocket.com/2025/12/04/r... #lawsuits #deals #grants @towcenter.bsky.social

Lawsuit or license? A new tool to keep track of disputes and deals between publishers and AI companies. Announcing a new tool to keep track of disputes and deals between news publishers and AI companies.

Announcing a new tool to keep track of disputes and deals between news publishers and AI companies. Read @klaudia.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/analysis/law...

AI Deals and Lawsuits | Platforms and Publishers A tracker monitoring developments between news publishers and AI companies—including lawsuits, deals, and grants—based on publicly available information.

Today the @towcenter.bsky.social is releasing a tracker (built by my talented colleague @aisvarya17.bsky.social) that monitors developments between news publishers and AI companies—including lawsuits, deals, and grants—based on publicly available information. tow.cjr.org/ai-deals-law...

@technologyreview.com blocks all of OpenAI's and Perplexity's disclosed web crawlers in their robots.txt. Despite this, both OpenAI’s Atlas and Perplexity’s Comet retrieved the full text of a subscriber-exclusive article when asked to. How?

Read @klaudia.bsky.social and my recent CJR article:

In a shock development - AI companies are failing to benchmark what matters in newsrooms. More excellent work from our Tow Center research team @klaudia.bsky.social and @aisvarya17.bsky.social

Journalists need their own benchmark tests for AI tools. The performance tests used by AI companies don’t measure what matters in the newsroom.

In our latest piece for CJR, @aisvarya17.bsky.social and I argue that third-party evaluation of AI models is not just a technical matter; it’s a matter of accountability. www.cjr.org/analysis/jou...

The performance tests used by AI companies don’t measure what matters in the newsroom. By @klaudia.bsky.social and @aisvarya17.bsky.social for @towcenter.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/analysis/jou...

The Tow Center has looked into how good LLMs are at verifying and geolocating an image. Gentle reminder: "on multiple occasions models blatantly lied about the steps they took to arrive at an answer to our query" www.cjr.org/tow_center/w... #ai #osint

Why AI Models Are Bad at Verifying Photos “You don't know when it's just making stuff up.”

We asked seven different AI models to identify the location, date and source of photos taken by photojournalists, they collectively only answered 14 out of 280 queries completely correctly.

@aisvarya17.bsky.social @klaudia.bsky.social @columjournreview.bsky.social

www.cjr.org/tow_center/w...

New Research: Can AI models be used to fact-check images?

www.cjr.org/tow_center/w...

I cannot summarize this piece better than @klaudia.bsky.social did in this thread. The methodology and data from the experiment are linked in the article. Reach out with any questions, comments, or feedback!

NEW in @columjournreview.bsky.social: Why AI models are bad at fact-checking photos www.cjr.org/tow_center/w...

Why AI models are bad at verifying photos Many of the latest large language models, including OpenAI’s recently released GPT-5, tout an impressive capability: reasoning about images. We have seen viral trends of AI models geolocating obscure ...

Great work by @aisvarya17.bsky.social and @klaudia.bsky.social. Read more below!

www.cjr.org/tow_center/w...

More testing of LLMs for journalism, this time on identifying image location, date, and source.
By @aisvarya17.bsky.social and @klaudia.bsky.social with some of my own commentary.
www.cjr.org/tow_center/w... @columjournreview.bsky.social

A New Report Takes On the Future of News and Search The Tow Center for Digital Journalism interviewed news and tech industry representatives about AI’s impact on platforms and publishers. They expressed some hope and a lot of trepidation.

The Future of News and Search:
The Tow Center for Digital Journalism interviewed news and tech industry representatives about AI’s impact on platforms and publishers. They expressed some hope and a lot of trepidation. By Klaudia Jaźwińska. www.cjr.org/the_media_to...

SPARC Webcast: OA, Attribution, and Addressing Faculty AI Concerns - SPARC As AI adoption accelerates, authors have growing concerns over maintaining control of their own work that may reduce their willingness to share their research openly. Publisher licensing deals with AI...

SPARC has invited @klaudia.bsky.social & @aisvarya17.bsky.social (Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia U) @davehansen.bsky.social (Authors Alliance) & @petersuber.bsky.social (Harvard U) to discuss AI issues on May 29 at 1 pm EDT. SPARC members can register at: sparcopen.org/event/sparc-...

Journalism Zero: How Platforms and Publishers are Navigating AI <p>Download the PDF here. This research is generously funded by the Tow Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Introduction Early in our first interview, a veteran news exec...

I wrote about the report - and publishers' anxiety around the decline of traditional search - in today's @columjournreview.bsky.social newsletter www.cjr.org/the_media_to...

A New Report Takes On the Future of News and Search The Tow Center for Digital Journalism interviewed news and tech industry representatives about AI’s impact on platforms and publishers. They expressed some hope and a lot of trepidation.

A new report I co-authored for the @towcenter.bsky.social is out today! We interviewed representatives from the news and technology industries about AI’s impact on the relationship between platforms and publishers. They expressed some hope and a lot of trepidation. www.cjr.org/the_media_to...

Google's "AI Mode" in action. To the extent anyone uses it, this will be a traffic killer for news: two clicks to actually visit a site and you have to click the link icon for the sidebar to update with the sources so it also limits source credibility signals.

2️⃣ At 10:15 GMT we'll examine the power dynamics emerging between news organisations and AI developers, focusing on content licensing and data valuation

Featuring @fedecherubini.bsky.social @felixsimon.bsky.social @agstrait.bsky.social @mattrogerson.bsky.social @klaudia.bsky.social
buff.ly/dEmIIrg

The Battle over AI and Copyright Enters a New Phase Google and OpenAI want Trump to open up the rules. News publishers have some thoughts.

Google and OpenAI want Trump to open up the rules. News publishers have some thoughts, by Klaudia Jaźwińska. www.cjr.org/the_media_to...

AI search engines cite incorrect sources at an alarming 60% rate, study says CJR study shows AI search services misinform users and ignore publisher exclusion requests.

Columbia Journalism Review tested eight generative AI search tools and found their answers were wrong 60% of the time, and the paid ones actually fared worse than the free ones.

Meanwhile, millions of people trust the way they present total bullshit with confident language.

See How Elon Musk’s Team Inflated, Deleted and Rewrote Its Savings Claims (Gift Article) The cost-cutting group removed hundreds of contracts from its “wall of receipts,” added back many of them, and inflated savings values.

Imagine if all of government reported data like DOGE does -- deleting numbers, altering them without notice, pointing numbers to the wrong things.

w/ another awesome @ethansinger.bsky.social graphic:

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/13/u...