This week's skipper was written by an AI system using the prompt: "Write an article in the style of the Falmouth Packet skipper about AI and local journalism."

ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the world, and the field of journalism is no exception. Now, there's a new AI tool on the scene that could have a major impact on local journalism: ChatGPT.

ChatGPT is a large language model (LLM) that has been trained on a massive dataset of text and code. It can generate text, translate languages, write different kinds of creative content, and answer questions users ask it. And it's getting better all the time.

So, what does this mean for local journalism? ChatGPT could be used to automate some of the tasks that are currently done by journalists. For example, it could be used to generate summaries of news articles, write press releases, or even create social media posts. This could free up journalists to focus on more in-depth reporting and analysis.

Of course, there are also some potential risks associated with ChatGPT. For example, it could be used to create fake news or propaganda. It could also be used to automate the production of low-quality content. 

But the real threat to local journalism is not from AI itself. It's from the corporations that are using AI to automate the production of news. These corporations are not interested in providing high-quality journalism. They're only interested in making money. And they're going to do that by using AI to churn out as much low-quality content as possible.

So, what does this mean for the future of local journalism? It means that local journalists need to be more creative and more innovative than ever before. They need to find new ways to connect with their audience and to provide them with high-quality content that they can't get anywhere else. If they can do that, then they'll have a chance to survive in the age of AI. But if they don't, then they'll be replaced by machines.