Just in time for upcoming elections, The Canadian Press is using robot writing software to automatically create instant background stories on specific electoral districts.
A reporter needing an instant, 700-word backgrounder on any electoral district in the country – known as ‘ridings’ in Canada – need only issue a few commands to the AI systems’ chatbot.
The AI-generated writing tech does the rest, instantly producing a story profiling the local district.
The result: The ‘insta-piece’ features the latest info Canadian Press has in its database on the electoral district, including the district’s current representative, population, geographical size and most recent election results.
“My automation philosophy is to save humans from doing the repetitive work that computers excel at,” says Lucas Timmons. He leads automation efforts at The Canadian Press.
In other AI-generated writing news:
*AI-Created Newsletters, On-The-Cheap: Besides turning heads with robot writing software, artificial intelligence is offering new tools that enable virtually anyone to auto-publish a newsletter — with just a few keystrokes.
Essentially, these tools automatically search-out and grab excerpts of interesting Web content for you, repackage them as original posts, and then auto-publish the results as an online newsletter or publication.
This in-depth feature by Joe Dysart (2,615 words) offers a close look at how AI-driven auto-curation software is automating the creation of online publications.
Included in the story are detailed profiles of ten popular tools: Curata, PublishThis, Scoop.it, Instapaper, Shareist, WordPress Plugin MyCurator, AX Semantics’ Collaborative Content Curation System, CrowdyNews, Flockler and Tailwind.
*How AI-Generated Writing is Changing Public Relations: Martin Waxman — a communications professor at Seneca College — offers an in-depth look at how AI-generated writing and similar AI is remaking public relations.
Waxman’s premise in this 36-minute podcast: PR pros need to get up-to-speed on AI and develop a strategy to position themselves for an emerging technology that will change PR like no other technology before it.
*AI-Generated Writing’s Unintended Consequences: Author Andrej Kovacevic warns that robot writing software in the wrong hands could become a significant problem.
Specifically: AI automation is destined to lead to the easy and widespread creation of fake news, Kovacevic says. Also expect wholesale plagiarism by students using AI to write papers. And be ready for an unending torrent of low-quality copy popping-up on the Web, which could make it very difficult for search engines to find the good stuff.
Observes Kovacevic: “The whole tech world should start to bring its considerable skills to bear on these issues. Otherwise, they may have a major problem getting the genie back into the bottle.”
*Does AI Put Journalists Jobs on the Line?: The upcoming SXSW Festival in March 2020 has slated a special panel to examine if robot writing software is a boon to journalists – or a job killer.
On the panel are:
*Greg Galant, CEO, Muck Rack
*Leslie Poston, director of content, social, community, Noodle.ai
*Joseph Campbell, external relations & communications manager, Booz Allen Hamilton
*New Podcast Series on AI in Public Relations: Nelisa Ngqulana, a PR pro, has launched an ongoing podcast series focused on the impact of artificial intelligence – including robot writing software — on the PR industry.
*A Simple Magazine Written by AI: Techies Kathryn Lawrence and Ann Kidder have created a software tool that enables artificial intelligence to essentially auto-generate a magazine.
The pub — with a broad focus on technology and the future — captures already published content on the Web, rewords it and then republishes the resulting stories as a magazine.
More of a skeleton publication than a full-fledged magazine – there are no graphics and the layout style is minimalist – the robot writing software experiment nevertheless offers a glimpse into the countless publications expected to be auto-generated on the Web.
You can check out the magazine for yourself – dubbed Montag.xyz.
Lawrence and Kidder also offer coders a step-by-step guide on how they created the magazine with the help of AI.
*Retooling Journalism Education to Include Data Software Literacy: In this in-depth article, nine journalism educators from across the globe examine how journalism schools are reworking curriculums to familiarize students with robot writing software and similar AI journalism tools.
“Journalism is not a narrow set of traditional newsroom skills,” observes Nouha Belaid, an academic program manager at Central University of Tunisia. Instead, journalism “encompasses whatever tools and methods have — in one way or another — been made journalistic.
“Several journalism schools around the world have begun building bridges with computer science departments by opening research centers, co-teaching and cross-listing classes — and even developing joint degree programs.”
*AI-Generated Writing: No Job Killer for Journalists?: Robot.Net assesses the current impact of AI-generated writing on journalism. It’s conclusion: AI tools are not job killers for journalists.
Instead, the judicious use of robots customized for specific tasks can be more of an augmenting force than a destructive one, Robots.Net observes.
Bottom line: Editors should get comfortable deploying AI and similar technology to automate tasks, according to the article.
*AI-Generated Auto-Complete: Changing How We Think and Write?: AI auto-complete software like Google’s Gmail – which can be set to auto-complete sentences as you write – may be impacting how we think and write.
Kids brought up on auto-complete may have a tougher time becoming skilled at writing, according to Clare Wood, a professor of social sciences at Nottingham Trent University
And all users may be influenced by the auto-suggestions inherent in programs like Gmail, which encourage them to think and write in ‘approved’ ways.
“Predictive text systems are starting to offer suggestions that are longer, more coherent, and more contextual than ever before,” says Ken Arnold. He’s a researcher at Harvard’s school of engineering and applied sciences.
“It’s exciting to think about how predictive text systems of the future might help people become far more effective writers,” he says. “But we also need transparency and accountability to protect against suggestions that may be biased or manipulated.”
–Joe Dysart is editor of RobotWritersAI.com and a tech journalist with 20+ years experience. His work has appeared in 150+ publications, including The New York Times and the Financial Times of London.