Machines May Replace Journalists, Bloggers (Gulp)
I always thought the takeover by robots would be bloody or fiery, I never thought they would put me in the breadline though.
NewsScope or its next incarnation could end the “manual process” of journalism.
Wired UK had a story about the process, which is being used to plow through massive amounts of data.
Reuters’ language processing techniques represent an interesting twist, but there’s nothing particularly revolutionary about machine-readable news feeds. Like RSS, NewsScope depends on XML. The service was launched three years ago, and Dow Jones offers one of several competing products on the market.
It seems to have taken longer for machine-written news to emerge as a similarly reliable proposition. Two weeks ago, however, NewsScope started carrying news stories written by machines.
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.
Reuters’ NewsScope is currently being used only for financial data, keeping tabs on price points and trading activity.
It’s a bit scary to be honest, and not only for my yacht fund (currently at $14.65). If the process is connected to voice recognition during speeches or press releases, it could mean bot-created news across the board. This is distressing because there is already enough poor writing on the internet to choke a whale, but also because it means fewer journalists. Who’s to say that whoever has this machine won’t just turn it off at some point, and who will be the gatekeeper for all this information.
There are obviously some huge ethical questions about this sort of journalism, but the industry will adapt — but fewer reporters means less real news.
