It’s a journalist’s duty to hold the powerful accountable, but watchdogging relies on both public trust and cooperation from public officials. The Cronkite School’s Howard Center for Investigative Journalism is harnessing artificial intelligence to strengthen both.
As part of the AI Innovation Challenge—a collaboration between ASU and OpenAI, in which ChatGPT Edu licenses are provided at no cost for approved projects—faculty, graduate assistants and 15 students are using the large language model to improve investigative reporters’ access to public records.
Professor of Practice and Howard Center executive editor Mark Greenblatt leads the initiative inside the Center’s immersive reporting course, the capstone experience for the nation’s only master’s degree program in investigative journalism.
“We are finding that people who have never used a large language model before are trying it out for the first time and it’s really changing their entire world,” Greenblatt said. “It’s turning them into much more powerful investigative reporters at a much earlier stage in their career.”
Read how the Howard Center faculty and students use AI to power public records requests at ASU Enterprise Technology.