David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: Ok, so you’ve spent your career television without AI, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had that tool to solve those thorny problems…

SIMON: What?

SHAPIRO: … Or saying…

SIMON: You imagine that?

SHAPIRO: … Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.

SIMON: I don’t think AI can challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.

SHAPIRO: But if you’re trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you’re stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an AI and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.

SIMON: I’d rather put a gun in my mouth.

  • TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.todayEnglish
    10·
    18 hours ago

    He is the son of an influential computer scientist, so it wouldn’t be that surprising. The problem with most news institutions is that they are walled gardens, where the only people who get to pursue a career at some place like NPR is if their parents are loaded or very connected in high society.

    If you look up your average npr employee with any name recognition, there’s like a 90% chance their parents have blue links on Wikipedia, and about half the time they worked for NPR.

    Nepotism is so common in news, it’s no wonder why they have a hard time connecting with everyday Americans.

    • Aatube@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      15·
      18 hours ago

      i don’t get this claim.

      1. why NPR? why all that work just to get into NPR? they’re not prestigious at all. they’re the chronically underfunded local news source.
      2. i’ve never heard of Leonard D. Shapiro before. it sounds like he’s just an average computer scientist who actually did research. being “professor emeritus of computer science at Portland State University” is not a brag; i don’t see “influential” at all. it looks like his article was only created by somebody searching up things about Ari Shapiro.
      3. i just searched up probably the biggest NPR journalist, Nell Greenfieldboyce, and she’s got absolutely nothing mentioned in parentage.
      4. nine out of ten times i search up a NYT author i can’t find anything wikipedia-level about their parents.
      • teslekova@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        7 hours ago

        NPR is incredibly prestigious among a select elite group of well-educated liberal or leftist nerds.

      • TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.todayEnglish
        4·
        14 hours ago

        why NPR? why all that work just to get into NPR? they’re not prestigious at all. they’re the chronically underfunded local news source.

        NPR is just a single example of a larger problem that was pertinent as we were talking about ari Shapiro. NPR is one of the most prestigious and most listened to national news network on the radio.

        i’ve never heard of Leonard D. Shapiro before. it sounds like he’s just an average computer scientist who actually did research. being “professor emeritus of computer science at Portland State University” is not a brag; i don’t see “influential” at all. it looks like his article was only created by somebody searching up things about Ari Shapiro.

        Just because you haven’t heard of him does not mean he’s not an influential figure in his field “Shapiro’s research has significantly impacted database systems, particularly in the areas of query processing, optimization, and main memory databases. His work spans computer science, economics, statistics, and mathematics.”

        Any distinguished longtime professor at a major university has a lot of influence in certain circles.

        1. i just searched up probably the biggest NPR journalist, Nell Greenfieldboyce, and she’s got absolutely nothing mentioned in parentage.

        Nell Greenfieldboyce is by no means one of the more recognizable figures at npr… She’s the science correspondence. My point is that the news media hires mostly blue blood Harvard or Yale graduates who rarely live lives familiar to the average American. No one else can afford to take the unpaid internships that all of these institutions utilize.

        1. nine out of ten times i search up a NYT author i can’t find anything wikipedia-level about their parents.

        Just a few examples…

        Nyt publicist Head wsitor Managing editor Assistant managing editor Opinions editor Former head publisher 1992-2017 Former head publisher 1963-1992 Former head publisher 1935-1961