The Accolade Editorial Board unanimously warns that generative artificial intelligence [AI] — in regards to journalism, visual art, and videos and pictures — is slowly tarnishing human ingenuity by blurring the line between authentic human creation and automated imitation. We have ordered the following factors in terms of what we feel are most pressing to our world as student journalists.
Artificial intelligence is just that: artificial.
In just a few years, generative AI systems have rapidly advanced, now able to replicate images, videos and even human voices. However, no matter how convincing the output becomes, AI can only imitate — it can never innovate. It can never feel, struggle or grow. It can never replicate the lived experience and emotional depth that defines human originality.
Still, imitation is not without cost, especially when it begins to replace, rather than reflect, human creativity. Normalized for convenience, AI erodes our standards of authenticity and interferes with human ingenuity.
As AI becomes easier to access and harder to distinguish from human work, as seen in the aforementioned examples, the danger is no longer whether machines can create; it is whether audiences can tell the difference.
JOURNALISM
Whether we like it or not, the harsh reality is that AI is already in use in newsrooms. According to a February 2025 article from The Verge, some national outlets, such as The New York Times, now train staff to use internal AI tools for summarizing, editing and writing. Relying on AI for core newsroom tasks risks prioritizing speed over judgment, which can weaken reporting. This reliance compromises the authenticity at the heart of journalism and risks leaving future audiences skeptical of whether stories are shaped by human responsibility or automated convenience.
Another well-known example of automation in journalism comes from the Los Angeles Times, where an AI bot known as Quakebot automatically generates a short earthquake story within minutes of a U.S. Geological Survey alert. The system pulls data, fills it into a template and alerts editors, requiring only a quick review before publication.
Some point out that AI can save time on routine tasks, allowing journalists to focus on deeper, human-centered reporting and investigating. But when machines draft stories largely based on templates and existing data, the work lacks nuance and context — key elements of strong journalism. Bluntly, AI struggles to grasp emotional and cultural context, which can lead to oversimplified or misleading coverage if used beyond basic formats. This creates the danger of misrepresenting people’s experience and possibly even reinforcing stereotypes or bias.
The shift to AI raises ethical and quality concerns. In some cases, people have published AI generated content without clear labeling, leading audiences to assume the work was human-created. For example, critics raised concerns when the Los Angeles Times experimented with an AI generated “Insights” feature that added summaries and alternate viewpoints to opinion pieces, including one that appeared to downplay the history of the Ku Klux Klan, before it was removed amid backlash.
Ultimately, while AI can assist with certain minor newsroom tasks, it cannot replace the human judgment, inquisitiveness and creativity at the heart of reporting. When news publications begin to treat AI as a stand-in for human insight, they risk diminishing human ingenuity — the force that drives meaningful journalism.
VISUAL ART
According to Oxford Languages, the definition of art is “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” Emphasis on one word: human. Art reflects lived experience and perspective — something AI is incapable of comprehending. AI generated “art” is not truly art.
Despite the conventional definition, generative AI tools like DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion are being used to create illustrations and visual art at a massive scale with minimal human input. According to an Elegant Themes article last updated in January 2025, AI programs such as these require a large dataset of hundreds of millions of images and their text descriptions to work from. While impressive on the surface, this process is essentially remixing and mimicking, not originating.
The normalization and increased generation of AI “art” is harmful to every creator. An April 2023 Loyola Marymount University Magazine article revealed that artist Karla Ortiz witnessed her work being mimicked with AI technology, generating works that resembled her style. She’s not the only one: millions of artists’ works are fed into AI systems without the creators’ consent. For example, MidJourney’s AI was trained on billions of images scraped from the internet, including works by countless illustrators, without asking for permission. Eventually, in the worst-case scenario, audiences may start to treat these outputs as equivalent to human art, threatening the livelihoods of working artists and reducing their creativity.
What once required hours of effort — picking the right paintbrush, mixing colors on a palette, studying light and shadow — can now be replaced by seconds of typing keywords. The process that shapes an artist is reduced from the pressure of a brushstroke to a few keystrokes. Art loses its soul when creation no longer consists of human effort, care and risk.
VIDEOS AND PICTURES
AI’s expansion beyond still images into moving visuals is already reshaping how media is made and distributed — dangerously erasing the line between what’s real and what’s fabricated.
Generative AI tools can now alter and create videos that are nearly indistinguishable from real footage. This technology is behind deepfakes: videos in which one’s face or voice is convincingly manipulated to give the appearance that they did or said something they didn’t. We believe this technology is dangerous because it favors shock and manipulation over truth, turning what could be creative tools into instruments of deception.
According to a March 2023 Nevada Today article, deepfakes typically have a malicious intent and spread misinformation. Even worse, they have been used to harm women and children by creating nonconsensual pornography, irreversibly damaging people’s reputations. The ability to fabricate someone’s words or actions with despicably realistic visuals has made deepfakes a tool for deception rather than genuine storytelling.
The danger isn’t limited to exploitation; deepfakes have also been used politically and socially to mislead and confuse audiences. In several cases around the world, fabricated videos of politicians or public figures claiming controversial statements have spread, forcing corrections from news outlets and public apologies as viewers struggle to separate fact from fiction.
Traditionally, photos and videos have documented real moments, real emotions and real experiences, but when machines can realistically fabricate those images, trust begins to erode. Instead of strengthening visual storytelling, AI tools often recycle existing patterns for speed and shock value, diminishing human intention and care. Being cautious about how we consume and share AI generated visuals is essential because allowing automation to lead creative expression reduces the originality that gives human expression its value.
AI AS A TOOL
While we aim to stress the risks of AI, it’s also important to acknowledge that it undoubtedly has benefits. Generative AI helps to spark ideas, assist with repetitive tasks and serve as a tool for brainstorming or experimentation. The goal isn’t to ignore AI entirely, but to use it responsibly, leveraging its convenience without letting it replace human creativity, judgment and connection. After all, it is better to embrace it rather than fail to acknowledge it as a new norm.
One of the first steps in responsibly navigating AI is transparency: clearly labeling content generated by AI, whether it’s text, art, video or audio. When audiences know what is human-created and what is machine-produced, they can engage with media more critically and thoughtfully. Encouraging media literacy in schools and communities is also essential, helping people distinguish between genuine human work and automated imitation.
Beyond media, it’s important to protect our personal interactions from overreliance on AI. Using chatbots or companion apps as a replacement for real human connection can erode meaningful relationships and weaken the social skills that define us. By keeping AI in its proper place — as a tool rather than a substitute — we can safeguard both our creativity and our humanity.
The Accolade Editorial Board is made up of the top editors and section editors on the 2025-2026 staff with the guidance of adviser Christopher D’Innocente. If you have a question about the board’s decision or an issue for the board to discuss and write about, please email [email protected].
