Washington Post launches ‘Climate Answers’ chat bot

The Washington Post has rolled out a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool that will allow users to seek answers on environmental issues and climate change sourced from its coverage.

“Climate Answers” is designed to “make our journalism more accessible” to consumers, chief technology officer Vineet Khosla said in a memo.

Questions will be answered by the tool directly from articles published by the Post since 2016 that are in the climate, environment and weather sections.

If the tool doesn’t readily find a relevant article, it won’t serve a reply, Khosla said.

“We set a high bar in our scoring of relevant articles for a given question,” he added.

Under new leadership, the Post is working to roll out a third sector of its newsroom, dubbed “Build It,” that will include limited article summaries, AI audio-read newsletters and other tech-based ventures.

Several news providers have dipped their toes in the world of AI, with leading conglomerates like News Corp and Time partnering with Microsoft to provide content to ChatGPT.

Other media companies, most notably The New York Times, have sued OpenAI, seeking to end its practice of using their stories to train chatbots.