Artificial intelligence generated writing and similar tools are offering journalists a second chance to reconnect with the public and up-their-game, according to Charlie Becket.
The researcher is director of the Media Policy Project, sponsored by the London School of Economics and Political Science.
“AI in its broadest sense provides all sorts of opportunities for journalism – and journalism needs all the help it can get right now,” Beckett says.
In other AI-generated news:
*Riding Shotgun: Robo-Journalist as Sidekick: Chris van der Lee, a developer behind an AI-generated sports writing system, says AI journalism too often gets a bad rap.
The reason: “A few years ago, a couple of companies said they would be able to replace journalists within a few years, Van der Lee, says.
It’s a boast that turned out to be untrue.
Instead, AI systems like Van der Lee’s – which can generate short sports stories, which detail results of thousands of local soccer matches on a regular basis – are all about doing rote work.
That frees-up journalists to write more complex, more insightful news stories and features, according to Van der Lee.
“Robots will never write as well as people,” Van der Lee says. “And that’s just fine.”
*AI Editing Tool Grammarly Adds ‘Tone Detector:’ Writers looking for a second opinion on the tone of their writing can turn to Grammarly. It’s an AI editor that works in popular Web browsers.
The new feature on the AI editing tool can offer suggestions to create a writing tone that is neutral, confident, joyful, optimistic, friendly, urgent, analytical or respectful.
Currently, Grammarly’s tone analysis is available for Google Chrome users only. The toolmaker’s plan in coming months is to roll-out the feature to Firefox, Safari and other popular browsers.
*How AI-Generated Writing Works: A Deep Dive: With this article, author Keith Moehring, vice president, Strategic Growth, PR 20/20, offers an excellent, in-depth look at how AI-generated writing works.
It’s a step-by-step guide on how to get started using AI-generated writing for public relations, marketing and similar endeavors in content generation.
“Today, instead of three-to-five hours, reports take us 10 minutes to write,” Moehring says. “The reports are delivered on the first business day of the month. And the quality is consistent across all accounts.
“It’s been a huge win for our agency,” Moehring says. “And we’re actively testing other applications.”
*Mega German Retailer Otto Embraces AI-Generated Writing: A leading consumer goods retailer based in Germany says it has auto-created more than 100,000+ product descriptions using AI-generated writing.
The machined product snippets – powered by AX Semantics – are better than those generated by humans, according to Patrick Zackert, product manager, E-Commerce, Otto.
Plus, the AI-software option also results in fewer errors, Zackert says.
Currently, Otto uses the AI solution to generate product descriptions in 15 product categories, Zackert says.
*A View of AI Journalism from the United Arab Emirates: Author Mohamed Abdulzaher – a media consultant for the United Arab Emirates — has released a book an AI’s impact on journalism.
It’s written from a decidedly Arab perspective.
“AI journalism will create a new revolution in the media industry, where there are no geographic or legal borders (and) no restrictions imposed by governments,” according to Abdulzaher.
*Key Speakers Announced for October AI Journalism Conference: Major players in AI journalism are slated to present on the emergence of AI-driven journalism in Asia at the Digital Journalism World Summit, Oct. 7-8, 2019 in Singapore.
Those speakers include:
*Hannah Sarney, deputy head of audience engagement, Financial Times, UK
*Kourtney Bitterly, lead, R&D Group, The New York Times, USA
*Tammy Gur, head of UX&D, BBC, UK
For a complete run-down on the conference, click the link above.
*Update: AI-Generated News Implementations Around the World: With this article, Marketing Technology Insights offers a snapshot on major implementations of AI-generated writing across the globe.
One interesting news nugget from the story: A number of Arab news channels are looking to bring in virtual news anchors that can read news 24/7 – presumably from AI-generated scripts.
*Crave Job Security?: Stay Away from ‘Routine Cognitive’ Writing Gigs: Writers in ‘routine cognitive’ jobs are most at risk of losing their livelihoods to automation, according to author Siri Hedreen.
Essentially, such employment is characterized by formula-driven writing tasks, which can easily be subsumed by AI-generated writing software.
Emblematic of the trend are writers who work in the translation industry. There, neural machine transmission has put 500,000+ translator jobs at risk, according to Ofer Shoshan, CEO, One Hour Translation.
The prognosis: Demand for human translators may only last the next three to five years, he says.
“We should not sugarcoat this,” Shoshan says. “There will be an impact. The way to deal with it is to first understand and accept the fact it is coming.”
*Your Copywriting Job is Safe From AI: Ongoing unease on how AI-generated writing will impact writers’ job prospects has triggered a slew of articles prognosticating on that future.
This piece, from AdWeek, predicts your copywriting job is safe – despite the fact that Chase Bank, for example, just inked a five-year deal to bring in AI-generated writing to help write ads.
Essentially, there’s a huge gap between the ‘minimal creativity’ needed to write copy for a banner ad and what it takes to come up with an idea for a brand campaign, according to Jason Sperling. He’s chief of creative development at RPA, an ad agency.
*Also on RobotWritersAI.com — Evergreen Article:
*AI-Created Newsletters: On The Cheap
–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.