Hugo Kugiya looks back at his first journalism job with a sense of humor. Now a reporter for the Baltimore Banner, Kugiya started his career with a part-time job at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He remembers that experience, filled with fun Friday nights, plenty of high school football and mediocre writing.
Kugiya worked on the sports desk, where Friday nights were the highlight of the week. Each week, he waited for calls from high school football coaches to record statistics, scores and other details from the games. Kugiya would then turn this information into a short four-paragraph story.
“I thought I was so brilliant. I would show up in the morning, there was my story, and thought, ‘Man, I accomplished something,’” Kugiya said Wednesday to a group of about 100 Stevenson students, staff and faculty in Garrison North’s Claire Moore Room.
Kugiya was the guest of the Department of Communication for the 16th annual Shapiro-Rouse Lecture. His speech was titled “Storytelling Will Get You Everywhere: Communication in the Age of AI.”
“I can see now that AI could write that for sure. And AI should at this point,” Kugiya said.
While he recently returned to journalism after working for Microsoft, Kugiya has always been a writer. He has received many accolades for his work, including a Pulitzer Prize nomination. This expertise has made him a valuable source of advice in the writing field. With AI becoming a controversial topic in communication, Kugiya shared his views with the students and faculty
Although Kugiya believes AI is useful, he doesn’t think it can write everything. He says that it should focus on the basic stories, such as press conferences coverage and sports recaps. If AI handles those, humans can focus on more complex stories.
“In a nutshell, I think what AI will do is give us the ability to easily create C+ material,” Kugiya said. “And then the humans can focus on the B+, A-, A+ material.”
Kugiya was invited by Senior Lecturer Jeff Browne to share his thoughts on AI as part of the Shapiro-Rouse lecture series, which annually brings a prominent business leader to Stevenson. The event takes place thanks to the generosity of Ronald and Kathy Shapiro, and with the support of former Communication Department Chair Chip Rouse.
Rouse, who attended the lecture, said that as a teacher, she always emphasized the importance of storytelling, so she was excited to hear someone talk about it.
“I think it was fantastic that we had someone who addressed it in a modern age,” Rouse said.
Students also shared their thoughts on Kugiya’s speech. Third-year communication studies major Erin Wright, found his points thought-provoking and was surprised by his optimism regarding AI in the arts.
“I know a lot of people, especially people in the arts, are worried that when AI is going to start replacing jobs that the arts are the first to go,” Wright said. “So, it was really interesting to see how AI can be a complement to journalism, how it can handle the ordinary, kind of robotic stuff. And that journalists could focus on the more artistic and emotional stories.”
