Nieman Fellow Sotiris Sideris cautioned against relying on artificial intelligence in journalism during a Tuesday talk at Harvard, stressing the need for human fact-checking as AI use surges.

Sideris, a Greek data journalist, is a current data editor for the Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism and Reporters United, a news outlet in Greece. He was selected as a fellow by the Nieman Foundation, which funds nearly two dozen professional journalists to audit Harvard classes for a year.

His talk focused on the use of AI to fill in gaps in data analysis. The hour-long lecture was organized as a part of the annual Worldwide Week hosted by the Office of the Vice Provost for International Affairs, which spotlights global research topics across Harvard.

“The question today isn’t whether we are using AI in journalism — because we do it already and we are already past these states — but the question is whether we can do journalism without outsourcing our skepticism, our ethics, and our sense of accountability,” Sideris said.

Sideris recognized a variety of ways AI can make gathering information more efficient, including automating searches and analyzing data trends. He pointed to existing tools by Google, including Pinpoint and NotebookLM — AI-assisted tools that have become popular in data journalism.

But Sideris emphasized the need to check AI outputs throughout his talk, warning that a dependence on AI could result in increased errors without human verification.