The Rise of Machine-Written Journalism 134
Hugh Pickens writes "Peter Kirwan has an interesting article in Wired UK on the emergence of software that automates the collection, evaluation, and even reporting of news events. Thomson Reuters, the world's largest news agency, has started moving down this path, courtesy of an intriguing product with the nondescript name NewsScope, a machine-readable news service designed for financial institutions that make their money from automated, event-driven trading. The latest iteration of NewsScope 'scans and automatically extracts critical pieces of information' from US corporate press releases, eliminating the 'manual processes' that have traditionally kept so many financial journalists in gainful employment. At Northwestern University, a group of computer science and journalism students have developed a program called Stats Monkey that uses statistical data to generate news reports on baseball games. Stats Monkey identifies the players who change the course of games, alongside specific turning points in the action. The rest of the process involves on-the-fly assembly of templated 'narrative arcs' to describe the action in a format recognizable as a news story. 'No doubt Kurt Cagle, editor of XMLToday.org, was engaging in a bit of provocation when he recently suggested that an intelligent agent might win a Pulitzer Prize by 2030,' writes Kirwin. 'Of course, it won't be the software that takes home the prize: it'll be the programmers who wrote the code in the first place, something that Joseph Pultizer could never have anticipated.'"
What?! (Score:3, Funny)
"The latest iteration of NewsScope 'scans and automatically extracts critical pieces of information' from US corporate press releases"
Extracting useful info from press releases? This must be absolutely amazing software.
Breaking news... (Score:3, Funny)
News flash: Robotic reports indicate that all humans have died.
Oops, sorry, that was a programming error. The robots haven't figured out verb tenses yet.
Update: Ten, nine, eight...
The future of Slashdot! (Score:1, Funny)
These brainless news ai bots couldn't possibly do worse than the /. editors!
Re:Censorship (Score:2, Funny)
Re:nonsense (Score:4, Funny)
Just wait until they even try to automate spin!
enum bias {
ULTRA_LIBERAL,
FAIRLY_LIBERAL,
JUST_LEFT_OF_CENTER,
JUST_RIGHT_OF_CENTER,
FAIRLY_CONSERVATIVE,
ULTRA_CONSERVATIVE,
RUPERT_MURDOCH
};
At least there's now an automated process for it.
Re:Mod parent up. (Score:4, Funny)
This is nothing more than extracting stats and then placing them in pre-generated sentences.
In sports, this is okay.
Countless generations of sports writers and the enthusiasts who read their work would disagree with you.
I for one... (Score:5, Funny)
...look forward to our meme-ending overlords.