Artificial intelligence has become impossible to ignore. It seems like every week there’s a new AI model that promises to change the way we work, learn, and communicate. Before this assignment, I mostly thought of AI as something people used to help with homework or create funny pictures online. After looking through Yumi Wilson’s presentation and watching The AI Takeover: Who Controls Our Future? and The Thinking Game, I realized AI is changing journalism and media much faster than I expected. It’s exciting, but it also raises a lot of questions about trust, jobs, and who actually controls this technology.

One thing that stood out to me from Yumi Wilson’s presentation was how common AI has become in newsrooms. She explains that 82% of journalists now use AI tools, while 93% are concerned about AI’s impact on journalism integrity. That surprised me because it shows journalists are relying on AI while also worrying about what it could do to their profession. The presentation also emphasized that AI is best at handling large amounts of information, while journalists are still responsible for judgment, ethics, and accountability. I think that’s an important distinction because AI can organize information, but it can’t replace real-life experience or human decision-making.

The AI Takeover: Who Controls Our Future? focused less on using AI as a tool and more on where AI is headed if companies continue developing it without strong regulations. The documentary showed how major tech companies are spending billions of dollars to build increasingly powerful AI systems while governments struggle to keep up. Something that really stuck with me was seeing workers describe how AI has already changed their jobs and hearing concerns about massive data centers that require huge amounts of electricity and water. Before watching it, I honestly never thought about the environmental cost of AI. We usually only hear about how smart the technology is, not what it takes to keep it running.

The documentary also made me think about who benefits the most from AI. Tech companies often advertise AI as something that will cure diseases, improve education, and make everyone’s lives easier. Those possibilities are exciting, but the film also questioned whether companies are moving faster than society can safely handle. If only a handful of corporations control the most advanced AI systems, they also gain enormous influence over information, business, and even democracy. That feels like something everyone—not just computer scientists—should care about.

The Thinking Game gave me a different perspective. Instead of focusing on fear, it showed how researchers at DeepMind spent years trying to solve difficult scientific problems. I thought it was fascinating to learn about AlphaFold and how AI helped solve the protein-folding problem, something scientists had been working on for decades. That showed me AI isn’t automatically harmful. When it’s developed responsibly, it can help make discoveries that improve medicine and scientific research. At the same time, the documentary made it clear that breakthroughs like these don’t happen overnight. They require years of research, testing, and human collaboration.

After going through all of this material, I think the biggest lesson is that AI should remain a tool instead of becoming the person making important decisions. Journalists still need to verify facts, interview real people, and make ethical decisions before publishing stories. If media companies rely too heavily on AI without human oversight, mistakes and misinformation could spread much faster than they already do. Trust is one of the most valuable things journalism has, and once it’s lost, it’s difficult to rebuild.

Personally, I think AI is here to stay, and trying to ban it completely isn’t realistic. I already use AI to help me understand difficult topics or organize my thoughts. The difference is knowing where to draw the line. AI can help people become more productive, but it shouldn’t replace critical thinking or creativity. After this week’s readings and documentaries, I left with more questions than answers, but maybe that’s the point. The future of media won’t depend only on how powerful AI becomes—it will depend on whether people use it responsibly and whether society is willing to hold companies accountable for the technology they create.