AP pioneer autonomous software generated news articles
Associated Press have ushered in a brave new world for journalism after pioneering autonomous software generated stories for its online news.
Designed to increase the volume of its output and reduce the lead-in times for publishing the technique has been in use for the past week although it has thus far been limited to the dry earnings reports from companies like Hasbro, Honeywell and GE.
The robot penned pieces are distinguished from their human coined counterparts by way of a short footer, reading: “This story was generated automatically by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research.”
AP Managing Editor Lou Ferrara told Poynter: “The tap isn’t fully open yet,” he said. Some stories were published just as Automated Insights filed them, others have had a few “bugs here and there.
“What I’m trying to get out of is the data processing business,” Ferrara told Poynter earlier this month. “I can’t have journalists spending a ton of time data processing stuff. Instead I need them reporting.”