Garbage in, Garbage Out - AI media design thinking workshop

How might the ‘slop’ of generative AI content reinvigorate the value of journalism? A design thinking workshop 

Overview of the workshop

The rise of AI models, such as GPT, has contributed to a surge of low-quality, misleading, and false content, making it more difficult to find trustworthy sources.

As AI tools become more widespread, their effectiveness is being questioned due to their dependence on vast, often inaccurate datasets, creating a “garbage in, garbage out” problem. This raises concerns about AI’s role in spreading misinformation and its potential for exploitation in scams and disinformation campaigns.

In this design thinking workshop led by Are We Europe, we will explore the challenges and growing concerns surrounding the internet’s increasing domination by AI-generated content and its impact on authenticity, trust, and content quality. We’ll look at fact-checking techniques, dive into the "Dead Internet Theory," and go through design thinking exercises to draw up solutions to make journalism more valuable for our audiences in the age of generative AI.

Background: Design thinking is a flexible, iterative approach that helps teams understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems, and develop innovative solutions that can be quickly prototyped and tested. It is especially effective for addressing complex issues and follows five key phases: Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test.

These methods are central to our work at Are We Europe, which is why we adapted these widely used techniques—employed by thousands of organisations and industries worldwide—to support media makers, journalists, and creators in tackling challenges with a solutions-oriented mindset. We were one of the first and have continued to develop these methods against the constantly changing landscape of the media industry.

Who is this training for?

This training is designed for journalists, media executives, editors, audience and innovation editors.

Host:

Sabrina Faramarzi (she/they), Managing Director, Are We Europe

As a journalist, editor and designer focused on international issues around data, AI, gender and digital human rights, Sabrina has worked and written for The Guardian, Vogue Business, Vice, Wired and others. She has also consulted on audience development strategies and produced large-scale global editorial projects for media, culture and non-profit organisations. She is the founder of the data-driven creative agency Dust in Translation and one of the co-founders of the arts activist collective Feminist Internet.

About Are We Europe

Are We Europe is an independent multimedia platform for innovation & design thinking at the intersection of journalism and creative media. Striving for a more resilient and inclusive European media space, we develop opportunities that shape, diversify and strengthen the European media space, as well as execute editorial projects on issues that impact European identities in ways that challenge media conventions. As a media collective made up of multi-disciplinary creatives and journalists across Europe, we run a number of projects, design sprints and workshops that train the next generation of diverse media makers through our inclusive programme, Designing Europe’s Media for All.

Are We Europe creates spaces for inclusive, solution-oriented dialogue, focusing on fostering nuanced understanding and constructive conversations that move beyond binary or fear-driven perspectives. To achieve this, we use Design Thinking. Since 2017, we have hosted over 100 Design Thinking events and workshops across Europe for organisations such as Deutsche Welle, Will Media, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Hostwriter/Unbias the News, and Correctiv, and in countries such as Moldova, Greece, Greenland, Georgia, Germany, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, and the UK.