Rachel Gruber ‘25 studies how fellow journalists in the Brown and White integrate AI into their work, understanding how students make decisions about technology
Emerging journalists are joining the field as artificial intelligence threatens to dominate the field. Cognitive Science major and Brown and White journalist Rachel Gruber is researching how pre-professional journalists integrate AI into their work. By asking fellow journalists to mimic their workflow, Gruber is discovering what their answers can tell us about process and technology in the face of an ever evolving landscape.
Before finalizing her research topic, Gruber collaborated with Haiyan Jia, associate professor of journalism, to explore the limitations of AI—particularly its capacity for empathy. Now, she is running a two-part study: first, a survey to assess perceptions and attitudes toward AI integration; and second, an hour-long observation session.
“We're trying to figure out how people not only use AI in their journalistic practices, but how they view AI,” Gruber explains. “Do they give credibility to the technology they're using when they're creating something? Do they think that the technology should get credibility? Would they like whatever task they're using AI for to be fully automated?” By mapping their co-intelligence, Gruber is visualizing their mental model of the AI application they're using or the generative AI they're interacting with.
Spotlight Recipient
Rachel Gruber
Undergraduate