A new survey from Gould Finch finds that AI is poised to become the “essential key to success for the publishing industry,” according to Colin Lovrinovic, managing director, Gould Finch.
The in-depth, six-month survey brought back perspectives from 233 players in publishing.
Seventeen countries are represented.
One of the report’s top conclusions: Large, medium and small-sized publishers are all seeing spikes in readership with the introduction of AI tools.
In other AI-generated writing news:
*AI Software Will Help Cover UK General Election: The BBC plans to use artificial intelligence tools to help cover UK’s General Election Dec. 12.
Specifically, the news organization’s Web site will rely on ‘semi-automated journalism’ to produce election results coverage in English for 650 UK constituencies.
Another 40 stories will be AI-generated in Welsh.
*UK AI-Driven News Service Expanding, Seeking More Reporters: Radar, an AI-driven news service that helped pioneer the use of artificial intelligence in publishing, is expanding.
The service is looking for more reporters to help ramp-up production of its news stories, which are hyper-localized with the help of AI.
Radar is currently squired by six writers, who create AI story templates to produce hyper-localized stories from government and other public databases.
Currently, those writers – along with AI – generate 3,000 stories-per-week for scores of media subscribers to Radar’s news service.
*Dealing with the AI-Remake of the Google Search Engine: Google’s decision to use natural language processing to drive its search engine has completely reworked the rules of search engine optimization, according to TrustInsights, a digital marketing firm.
With the change, Google’s search engine will put more emphasis on what a search request actually means – rather than simply matching the words in a Google search with the same words used as keyphrases on Web sites.
For example: If someone queries Google with the phrase, “Hey Google, what’s the nearest place I can find espresso right now,” Google’s search engine is now designed to understand the searcher is looking for a coffee shop nearby that offers espresso.
Overall, the AI-makeover should enable Google to better understand the intent of 10% of all Google searches, according to Pandu Nayak, vice president search, Google.
*New AI-Feedback Tool for Student Essays Released: AI toolmaker Ecree has partnered with two educational firms to offer AI-feedback for students looking for guidance on essay writing.
The tool – embedded in an essay writing learning platform from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt – is one element of a four-part feedback system offered by the platform.
Other guidance provided by the software includes student peer review, self-review and teacher review.
“We use a clear set of rules to assess student work and provide feedback in the same way a human expert does,” says Jamey Heit, CEO, Ecree.
“The difference is that through the power of technology, Ecree can provide this feedback immediately and at scale.”
*AI-Driven News Story Research: Mixed Bag?: Datafloq weighs the pros and cons of news stories driven by AI research tools in this article.
On the plus side, Reuters has been able to use AI-driven research tools to break more than 50 major news stories, according to Datafloq.
But AI journalism can also auto-generate biased stories from AI tool. Too often, databases used by AI can be tarnished by human-embedded biases, Datafloq adds.
And AI algorithms often suffer the same fate.
*Major Meet Slated for AI-Generated Local News Writing: NYC Media Lab is putting together a two-day event by and for local news organizations intensely interested in the use of artificial intelligence in publishing.
Slated for January 24 and 25, 2019 at New York University, Newslab ’20 will be a participant-led, interactive event featuring 150 local news technologists, journalists, entrepreneurs, and newsroom innovators.
During the two-day event, attendees will engage in hands-on working groups and strategy sessions focused on defining the challenges faced by local newsrooms.
They’ll also work together to crystal-ball future scenarios possible for local news driven by AI.
Interested local news producers can apply to attend at the link above. Travel stipends are available for attendees in need of financial support.
*A Look at AI-Generated Writing at Schibsted: A 2019 report from the Oslo, Norway based media giant offers perceptive insights on how it uses artificial intelligence in publishing to produce sports, weather and traffic stories.
“The automated writing of texts means that there is no limit to how many texts can be produced in a day,” observes Michael Poromaa, managing editor, Aftonbladet, a Schibsted media property.
“Furthermore, the automatically written articles can mean more time for the paper’s reporters to concentrate on the biggest and most important stories.”
*Full Strength AI Fake News Generator a Yawn, Says Nieman Lab: Fears that the AI fake news generator GPT-2 could seriously undermine news reporting on the Web are most likely exaggerated, according to Joshua Benton of Nieman Lab.
Benton tested the full-blown version of GPT-2 — just released Nov. 5. He found that while GPT-2 can create readable prose, it’s not very good at creating prose that is believable.
Bottom line: While GPT-2 can generate news stories that are grammatically correct, most of its work product would not pass muster with a highly skilled editor.
Open AI – the creator of GPT-2 – initially released a weaker version of the fake news generator earlier this year, fearful that the full-blown version could be used nefariously.
Meanwhile, another fake news generator, GROVER, is also available on the Web, courtesy of AI-generated writing researchers at University of Washington.
Their system can render news free-form — or write in the style of highly respected publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post and Wired.
University of Washington researchers also say their motivation for releasing the fake news algorithm was to alert the public that such technology can be easily created and deployed.
*Sorely Needed: Guidelines on the Release of Potentially Damaging AI Writing Tools and Other AI Tools: Researchers need to come-up with firm guidelines to safeguard the public from the release of potentially damaging AI writing tools like GPT-2, according to John Naughton.
He’s professor of the public understanding of technology at Open University. And he’s author of “From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg: What You Really Need to Know About the Internet.”
“At the moment, the law has little to say about any of this,” Naughton observes. “So we’re currently at the same stage as we were when governments first started thinking about regulating medicinal drugs.”
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*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.